You are currently leading an initiative called Powering Livelihoods. What is it about?
Powering Livelihoods, as the term suggests, is about literally powering or energising livelihoods in peri-urban and rural areas through clean energy. We have been exploring various kinds of clean technology-based livelihood solutions.
Imagine, for example, a waste biomass-powered cold storage helping a farmer producer organisation extend the shelf life of lemons and increase its income. Or a cold storage unit run on solar energy, enabling a group of women to enhance their incomes. Consider a solar-powered hydroponics unit that helps grow fresh green fodder for animals in semi-arid, dry regions where green fodder is scarce. Or a clean energy-powered spinning machine reeling silk from cocoon to yarn, reducing the drudgery for women who previously used thigh reeling.
These are just a few examples. We are directly working with around 20 such technologies to help people improve their incomes.
What is the kind of business opportunity we have here?
We estimate the collective market for these solutions to be close to $50 billion. They have the potential to impact nearly 37 million livelihoods in India—and that’s just considering current opportunities. I believe the potential will only grow further. This also supports much-needed income diversification in rural areas.
What have been the learnings over the last year that could be used for scaling up?
One key learning is that we must adopt an ecosystem-level approach. Focusing on a single good technology—like a solar charkha or cold storage—won’t work on its own. That might create a few isolated success stories but won’t help build a fully self-sustaining, privately managed ecosystem.
These technologies often become dependent on one scheme or another. To truly scale and make this a mature industry, we need an ecosystem approach. That means addressing challenges at every level—from the end users to channel partners, financiers, and policymakers—and increasing awareness across the board.
Gender is a general concern. How are you making your initiative gender inclusive?
Our programme has a very explicit focus on being gender inclusive. Women face barriers at every stage. For instance, if the technology is not designed with women in mind, it might not be easy for them to use.
We look at inclusivity from the technology design stage itself. Then comes awareness generation—what channels are being used? Are those accessible to women? If you are using social media, are as many women accessing mobile phones as men? Can we instead reach them through women’s self-help groups?
When women express interest, the next challenge is accessing loans. Women often lack assets or collaterals in their name. If banks demand collateral, that becomes a barrier. So we are advocating for collateral-free loans, similar to how one can buy a two-wheeler without pledging land documents. We want similar accessibility for DRE-based livelihood solutions, especially for women. As a result, nearly 50% of our users are women. Out of the 32,000 livelihoods we have supported, half are women.
Finally, what would you like to see in the next five years?
I would like a world where I don’t need to explain that these solutions exist—where they are already known and mainstream.
With reliable power through distributed renewable energy (DRE), we have overcome a major constraint. Can we now reimagine economic structures—creating more local, inclusive value chains and loops? Not just in theory, but in practice within the next five years.
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