Udyog Sanchetana - March 2024
Virendra Grover
IITian, Trainer, Editor "Udyog Sanchetana", Career Coach, Author Freelance BLOGGER, Life Member LUB, IEI, IIM, GMA
Udyog Sanchetana is a page on LinkedIn and a Monthly, FREE, eNewsletter since April 2014. Reach out to 118th issue in Hindi at - https://lnkd.in/gPXhzE2U
Follow the page to keep in touch and share it with your contacts, specially teachers and students.
English edition brings a brief about PHOOL that RECYCLES used flowers.
HOLI is festival of Harmony, but should we not learn to live in Harmony with nature? World Water Day – 2024 is being observed on March 22nd ; it’s time to ACT, not just indulge in Seminars and greetings on social media.
The Birth of an Enterprise?
It was Makar Sankranti, a cold winter morning of 2015, when Er. Ankit Agrawal visited bank of river Ganga in Kanpur along with a friend. Despite being one of the most revered water bodies of India, the two wondered why the condition of river was so pathetic.
It’s easy to blame tanneries, factories, sewers and indiscriminate dumping of refuse, but are we helpless as individuals? Something had to be done and the idea gave birth to a startup PHOOL, utilising/ recycling used flowers collected from the Temples.
The journey – A struggle
It was hard, as usual to conceptualise recycling floral waste, but the simple idea became a roar success once it set rolling. Over year and a half was spent in experimenting, meeting stakeholders and pitching, before the flower-cycled incense was conceived and crafted.
It was the beginning to preserve a water body, the river Ganges and empower vernacular people around by providing a means to earn their livelihood.
Where they are today?
PHOOL has grown beyond expectation of the two co-founders. With investment from abroad the startup invested heavily on R&D to convert the temple-waste into biodegradable packaging and bio-leathers, besides incense sticks and the social enterprise now spans couple of cities, in addition to Kanpur. And do you know - they have an investor from film world : Alia Bhatt.
Celebrating Water
Shortage of a commodity or widening demand-supply gap leads to conflicts and clashes. Water sharing disputes among nations and states within country are common and at times there are violent scenes at distribution sites for water. Hence “Water for Peace” is most appropriate theme of World Water Day-2024, being observed as a ritual on 22 March year after year,
Governments do their best through policies, projects and programs like Tap Water to Every Household (Har Ghar Nal se Jal), rejuvenating ponds through Amrit Sarovars, Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) looking after ground water since 1986. There is mission to promote Water Harvesting, local bodies manage drains and sewage treatment plants (STP), high powered agencies look after Floods and Draughts and many others involved in work related to Water Management.
Individual and institutional initiatives by NGOs are doing exemplary work that at times gets highlighted in media. Ramvir Tanwar of Greater NOIDA in UP is called PONDMAN for his crusade to rejuvenate PONDS. linkedin.com/in/ramveer-tanwar-pondman
领英推荐
Another Mechanical Engineer crusader is working for over 5 years in Karnataka - https://lnkd.in/grs38QQV
Tata Tea has done an interesting advertising that creates awareness through Rhymes in schools. Thanks GOD .....Water has a Day? https://lnkd.in/g2qJ2n7W
But, the situation is alarming, if we could recall Cape Town’s water crisis of 2018, when the city was just 90 days away from turning off the taps.
The story of LATUR in Maharashtra is not very old and Bengaluru is yet another warning. ZEE News dated June 22, 2023 referred to Jamshedpur, where Steel Township is lucky to have 24 x 7 supply, but in localities around, the condition is horrible, a JAL PURUSH, - Raj Kumar Singh has been providing FREE water to? the deprived for the last 14 years through his 9 Tankers.
Serving FREE drinking water on city streets, railway stations, religious places is still prevalent, but the bottled water, supply through tankers, water purifiers etc have made water a multi-billion dollar business.
The Big Question
Nothing wrong with commercialisation, it’s needed to make India a 5-trillion economy, but could we combine Social tag with Business?
While government works at MACRO level, there is need for MICRO management in small manageable territories and it could operate in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. There in NO ownership in government and the social activist lacks resources, but a Startup in Social Entrepreneurship could complement and combine the benefits of both.
Academicians have a Role
Institutions could have study projects and social camps by students to carry out surveys, educate and interact with housewives for conservation practices, create market for community water harvesting, where individual area is less than the statutory requirement of 300 square meter.
Study supply bottlenecks, use of submersible pumps, quality and pressure of supply, spendings by individuals despite free water supply, scope of telemetering using IoT (Internet of Things) with sensor technology and create awareness among consumers for the need to conserve water resources.
Prepare projects to undertake rejuvenation of ponds and repair of handpumps, etc. seek support of corporator, MLA/ MP or seek CSR fund from Corporates.
Such study projects could pave the way for STARTUPS that function in specific localities, urban townships or even villages. They should be responsible for ground water charging and monitoring, water distribution to domestic, industrial and agricultural users, waste water recycling, and metering + charging ar reasonable COST that encourages thrift.
The Startups should be responsible for all water bodies, rivers, lakes, wells in their area of control and should work in partnership with state bodies responsible for Floods, Draughts or any other related activity.
Let the communities entitled for FREE water get their bills re-imbursed to Bank accounts by appropriate agencies. Rules, Regulations, Acts and Penalties don’t carry meaning, if there is no entity to undertake TOTAL responsibility, with effective networking with all Stakeholders.