It
was the desire to work in the village that brought Gyanesh Pandey, an
electrical engineer from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), to Bihar from
Los Angeles where he was working as a senior yield enhancement engineer
with a company called International Rectifier. Pandey established Husk
Power System (HPS), which uses rice husk to generate electricity, with
Manoj Sinha and Ratnesh Yadav who were looking for a technology to fit
their model for six years. Sinha is an electronics engineer, who is now
based in the US while Yadav is involved at the ground level with Pandey.
Today, HPS supplies eight to 10 hours of power to 18,500 households in
some of the off-grid villages, where the state-run electricity board
doesn't reach. Over 1.5 lakh rural Indians benefit from this and around
250 people are employed. Sudhir K. Singh, director, Ministry of New and
Renewable Energy, says, "He is a rare mix of commitment, vision and
management skills."
The Mission To make villages in India
livable. Their NGO, Samta Samriddhi Foundation, supports the education
of over 250 children at Tamkuha. They also employ women to make incense
sticks using plant byproduct.
The Challenge To find sustainable
technology to achieve rural growth. "Managing people at ground level is
tough. We have created a paradigm. We have to now sustain it."
No comments:
Post a Comment