India's poor are perhaps the most notoriously poverty-stricken people in the world. From the sprawling urban slums made famous in Slumdog Millionaire, to the beggars in Calcutta, to the devastating caste system still persistent in rural areas, one-third of the world's poor calls India home.
Resources are sparse, electricity is scarce, and jobs are scant.
But one new partnership is seeking to alleviate all three of those issues in one fell swoop.
Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture company, has announced a new investment in Husk Power System (HPS). HPS turns rice husks — which rural Indians have a steady supply of — into combustible gases which, in turn, drive generators that produce clean energy for these rural villages.
This is a godsend for rural India, where over half of households lack electricity of any kind. The government even went as far as to declare it "economically impossible" to provide them electricity through conventional means.
Many villagers in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa — an area known as India's "Rice Belt" — currently rely on kerosene lanterns for household lighting and diesel generators for commercial power.
Both are environmentally and economically untenable.
The Acumen/ HPS plan would provide electricity to up to 125 villages by the end of this year, with an ultimate goal of reaching 5,000 villages. If that goal is completed, 20 million more people will have access to clean, affordable electricity.
The program is expected to meet another vital need by creating 6,000 jobs as well.
"As both developed and developing nations search for alternative sources of energy in response to the growing energy crisis, we at Acumen Fund believe that investing in entrepreneurs who provide innovative energy solutions is an increasingly critical part of the solution," noted Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen Fund's CEO.
"Companies like Husk Power Systems are working to impact positively not only the environment, but to ensure that someday everyone, including the poorest of the poor in rural India, will have access to clean and affordable electricity."
In order to keep that electricity affordable, HPS is utilizing low cost measures like using bamboo poles and low-voltage wiring. They even provide energy-efficient appliances and compact florescent light bulbs where needed.
This isn't the first time the Acumen Fund has reached out to India's poor. Since 2001, the firm has invested $18 million into a myriad of sustainable business measures that tailor their products and services to India's citizens living in poverty.
By investing in poor communities like those in India's "Rice Belt," Acumen and HPS are not only lending a hand to oft-neglected communities, but they are also opening up new markets for investors where little opportunity existed before. First comes the infrastructure... then come the jobs... then comes upward mobility.
Both the local population and socially-conscious entrepreneurs have everything to gain from such an arrangement.
You can learn more about the project at www.acumenfund.org.
Be Well,
Jimmy
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