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Aishwarya lights Africa with solar
flair
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON - The sun is shining
on this particularly globalized project: an Indian
has been encouraged by a British award to 
begin
manufacturing solar lamps in China with material
sourced in Japan to sell to South Africa and
Australia.
But until recently, Dharmappa
Barki, who lives in Secunderabad in the Indian
state of Andhra Pradesh, did not have the kindest
things to say about globalization. When he won the
Ashden awards, with a prize of almost US$50,000,
Barki realized the difference between the
globalized world of aircraft flying overhead and
the dark world of many Indian villages below.
Barki
has sought to dispel some of that darkness with a
solar lamp he has manufactured, named the
Aishwarya after India's best-known actress,
Aishwarya Rai. He has sold so far more than 50,000
lamps produced at his company, NEST (Nobal Energy
Solar Technologies). Aishwarya is not the first
solar lamp, but it is a particularly efficient
one. Priced Rs1,400 ($32), it provides three 
hours of good light a day. Its battery is
guaranteed for three years and its solar panel for
10.
The lamp, which has a bright and
constant white light, has found many takers
because it is backed by microcredit. Instead of a
down payment of Rs1,400, buyers can pay Rs100 a
month over 16 months. The Ashden award for
renewable energy presented to Barki last month has
done wonders for him. "There's been a huge
interest in his product as a result of the
awards," said Jo Walton from the Ashden awards
trust in London.
"I am receiving a lot of
new business inquiries," said Barki. Several new
orders are in the pipeline already as a result, he
said. "That includes three companies in Sri Lanka,
one in Pakistan, one in Somalia and one in
Australia," he said. These deals are all close to
completion, according to him. But Barki has been
negotiating one of his biggest projects even
before the award. "I have a confirmed order for 1
million solar lanterns from South Africa over a
period of two years. We are just working out the
last details over pricing."
For
manufacturing on that scale, Barki has worked out
an agreement with a company in China. "I am
getting a 40% advantage in manufacturing costs in
China compared to India," he said. A difficulty
has been procuring the silicon seed stock need to
manufacture the solar panel on the lamp. For that
Barki has entered into an alliance with a Japanese
company. "This was crucial because there is a
shortage of silicon seed stock around the world
because of the very high demand and consumption in
Germany," Barki said. "People like us are not
getting enough supply, and we would never be able
to meet demand without this product. Fortunately
we have been able to source it from Japan. Our
turnover last year was about Rs2 crore
(US$500,000)," he said. Given the huge new orders
in the pipeline, Barki is clearly well on the way
to becoming the Bill Gates of solar lanterns.
Barki says he named his lamp Aishwarya
because the actress is "a combination of beauty
and brains". Many would only half-agree with him,
but there can be little doubt that both Aishwaryas
have found extraordinary success. The solar lamps
provide a smoke-free source of light to villagers
who have no access to electricity. The use of such
lamps has revolutionized the lives of thousands of
such people.
Barki set up his NEST in
1998, and has never looked back since he created
his Aishwarya in 2001. His aim was to produce a
lamp portable enough so that one could serve a
whole family, and robust enough to withstand uses
as varied as children poring over their studies,
farmers milking a buffalo, or stallholders
lighting their wares in the market. What began as
a "made in India" operation is now set to acquire
global inputs and find a global reach.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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