AN OBSERVATORY

ATOP THE DEVANARAYAN DURGA HILL, SITS AN OLD DILAPIDATED PWD GUEST HOUSE, ASIDE FROM THE ANCIENT TEMPLE ON THE ADJOINING HILL. THE AREA IS DENSLY FORRESTED AND IT HAS A PROTECTED WILD LIFE SANCTUARY CALLED NAMADA CHILUME.

 

THIS PLACE, ABOUT 72 KMS FROM BANGALORE ON THE TUMKUR, COULD BE A PERFECT SETTING FOR SETTING UP AN OBSERVATORY, A SMALL RESORT OF MAY BE 20 ROOMS AND A HELIPAD. KARNATAKA TOURISM SHOULD GIVE A THOUGHT TO THIS IDEA. PERHAPS IISC. COULD USE THIS AS AN OUTSTATION CLASSROOM FOR RESEARCH.

 

 

REVIVING THE GREAT HIMALAYAN CAR RALLY

Long Back in the 80’s, The Great Himalayan Car Rally was a big event attracting many tourists and millions of rupees worth publicity for Tourism for what is now the most beautiful part of Uttaranchal. With the boom in the car industry, Aviation companies, perhaps the government of Uttaranchal should give a thought to reviving the event with the help of private sponsors.

 

 

MONUMENTAL NEGLECT

 

 

 

WHILE I HAVE ALL RESPECT FOR THE INTENTIONS BEHIND THE STATEMENT OF ISRO CHAIRMEN PROF. KASTURIRANGAN, OF WHAT USE IS BUILDING NEW MONUMENTS, WHEN THOUSANDS OF OUR SURVIVING MONUMENTS ARE IN SHAMBLES?

 

 

THE INNER WALLS of the Charminar, the towering landmark of Hyderabad, has been defiled by graffiti and the plaster is peeling off at many places. The Archaeological Survey of India is the caretaker of this heritage structure, built by the founder of Hyderabad and Nawab of Golconda, Quli Qutub Shah, in 1591.

 

 

'Build monument in Bangalore, like Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty'

Bangalore, Sept. 8 (PTI): Former ISRO Chairman K Kasturirangan today mooted the idea of creating a monument for Karnataka here -- something like Eiffel Tower in Paris and Statue of Liberty in New York -- symbolising the spirit of the State.

Addressing the annual convention of the Bangalore Management Association here, the Rajya Sabha member said a monument for Karnataka that symbolises the spirit of the State, entrepreneurship, adventurism, culture and social ethos, was needed.

He also said 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the State's formation."Let's build the monument," the former Space Commission member said.

"When I think about the monument (for Karnataka), it's something like what an Eiffel Tower in Paris and Statue of Liberty in New York, but in a different context. Maybe we should think about it."

He stressed the need for "inclusive growth", and on increased focus on social sector, saying people should not get a "feeling of alienation". Projects cannot be completed on fast-track basis unless substantial sections of people have a stake in it.

Bangalore's infrastructure should be improved in such a way that it would cater to the requirements even after 50 years and hold good even for centuries, Kasturirangan advocated."We have to think locally, and act globally."

He also suggested instituting 100,000 scholarships so that students of Karnataka are able to study in best of the institutions in the State and outside.

Given the extent of taxes collected by the State, he said it (offering 100,000 scholarships) "is not something which is inconceivable. We have to think big."

 

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY IN FOOD PROCESSING

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY IN FOOD PROCESSING

 

As the new airport comes up at Bangalore, food processing will increasing become attractive as the cost of transport and infrastructure required will be there. This is good opportunity for entrepreneurs who understand the food processing business.

 

Infrastructure gaps bug mangoes export to Japan

K.V. Kurmanath

DESPITE BEING POPULAR

---

Infrastructure issues
The Japanese summer season is short and necessary infrastructure is required to process and pack the fruits
Vapour heat plants and pack houses are currently lacking and these need to be put into place to tap the Japanese market efficiently

---

Hyderabad , Aug. 25

A trial consignment of Indian mangoes has turned to be a big hit in the Japanese market, following the Union Government's decision to allow Indian mangoes. Four importers have shown interest in getting mangoes from India when the season begins next summer.

But the systems still need to be put in place to tap the mango opportunity fully in the far-eastern country. Infrastructure facilities like vapour heat treatment plants and pack houses are lacking.

The Japanese officials notified protocols for import of mangoes from India and directed the quarantine officials to follow the protocols.

"They want the fruit in the summer and luckily our mango season suits it very well," a Ministry of Commerce official told Business Line.

Infrastructure

He, however, reminded that the season is quite short and it is very important to have necessary infrastructure to process and pack the fruits.

What is required is vapour heat plants. Though there is a plant operating in Maharasthra, it cannot meet the demand. It is also not viable for farmers in States like Andhra Pradesh to send the fruit all the way to Maharashtra for processing. "Andhra Pradesh alone needs at least three such plants to cater to the three regions," the official said.

"We have met up with marketing committees and other stakeholders to impress upon them the need for setting up such plants. Exporters and cooperatives should come forward to take an initiative," the official said. Depending on the capacity, each plant would cost anywhere between Rs 2 crore to Rs 7 crore.

What bothers the officials most is the lack of quality fruit. Of the 3 million tonnes of produce in Andhra Pradesh, only a fraction is fit for exports. "We need to focus on producing quality fruits," he said.

Other markets

Even as Japanese market promises huge opportunity, markets nearer to that in Hong Kong and China too offer good prospects for Indian mango growers. Exports to China via Hong Kong have begun, though in a small way.

The US market is expected to be opened up in two years time. The US has been asking for certain specifications like hot water treatment and irradiation.

 

WOMEN ONLY TAXIS

First there were women only compartments, women only floors in hotels, women targeted credit cards and now someone has thought of women only Taxis. This is a great idea, considering how difficult it is to differentiate one taxi service from another. In India, an auto is an auto is an auto with no difference what so ever. I have always thought there is potential to ‘brand’ them’ as ‘green autos’ which use CNG, with a clean shaven and well spoken trained driver. Now, with this idea of women only autos, this ‘branding the auto’ idea goes further. I am pretty sure that atleast 50% of the auto passengers are women. Another statistic will tell you the number of rapes and murders committed by the Auto or Taxi drivers, most murders motivated by rape. At Night, having a women auto driver automatically generates more trust and safety for a women passenger. What a great idea, but taxi-rules in India do not promote owning a taxi-company. Therefore the car rental market/ Taxi market in India is very highly fragmented.

Pink taxis for women

United Arab Emirates: Wednesday, August 16 - 2006 at 07:21

Dubai will soon run women-only taxis, with women drivers, according to Gulf News. The new taxis will have a distinctive pink roof, pink seats and interiors. 50 will be rolled out in the next few months.

 

BUSINESS AS USUAL

MOMENTOS AND SOUVENIRS

 

Where ever I travel- Airports, Hotels, MBA schools, Tourists places- there is ALWAYS something of a collection of souvenirs available to take back home. T-shirts, Mugs, batches, car-stickers, fridge magnets, clocks, caps, wall hangings, key-chains, lighters etc.

However other than possibly Agra, have you seen any in India? Do you remember seeing anything at the Airports? For Bangalore City, For Ooty? For Andamans?  Even such big chains like ITC, TAJ and OBEROIS don’t have their own. Jet does not sell its own model crafts. No airline has its own t-shirts selling on the planes or atleast not regularly so.

 

This is an SME opportunity to be developed.

 

 

 

 

 

MORE IDEAS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Here are some more ideas for entrepreneurs:

 

1. Gift Certificates – I just wanted to buy gift certificates for some of my relatives for a trip to Goa. Can you imagine that none of the Airlines nor hotels or resorts offer gift certs in India?

Gift Certs are big business in other countries particularly in the US. During Christmas time, these are in big demand. From malls, to hotels to Airlines to any kind of services, you can buy and gift it using a gift cert. No so in India. Why hasn’t any one thought of it?

2. Toilet Deodorant dispensers -  Been a restaurant/Hotel/Airport/Office loo. Ah…the familiar odor in the Urinal. Those which don’t smell like a disaster, don’t smell good, to say the least. You will however, see the familiar toiler phenyl balls or tablets either in the Urinal or hung from the wall. The world has moved to sophisticated self dispensed toilet deodorants with timers, which make a loo smell atleast as good as your temple….if not better. Remember, “…Your Bathroom is a room too.” advertisement? Someone wake up the Janitorial products providers in India. Kimberly-Clark?  

 

3. Taxi bill printers – So your boss has just accused you of padding up your conveyance bills on your last travel, ha? No need to worry. Show him a printed auto or taxi bill next time. Ah.. but for that you’d have to be in Singapore. Better still, you could be paying your taxi bill using your credit card. How convenient. So how come, with 70,000 autos in Bangalore alone, nobody thought of installing an auto bill printer. It is not that expensive.
4. Buko Pies  & Philippine Cigars  -  This one is for the bakers and the chefs. ‘Buko’ is Coconut in Malay/Filipino. The tender coconut with its abundant milk-cream is the raw material. Rest is all like it is in any pie. And the Cigars- few people know that when the Spaniards came to discover the Philippine islands, they planted tobacco leaves they got from the South American countries/ Mexico, perhaps Cuba as well. The Philippine cigars are good quality, they just don’t have the resources to market them to the world. This is an opportunity waiting to be tapped.

 

 

 

Village Enterpreneurs

By The People, For The People

An organisation that hunts down rural innovators and turns their efforts into marketable options

Two years ago, Joy John Thengumkudiyal of Kerala had improvised the JS milker, a simple vacuum-driven device to draw milk from buffaloes. Unfortunately, he was able to sell just three of four of them in a month. Then Rural Innovations Network (RIN), a Chennai-based non-profit organisation established in 2001, got in touch with John Thengumkudiyal—thereby adding meaning to the Joy in his name. RIN has managed to improve sales to 25 units per month.

Amudha Palanivelu who till recently used to physically milk seven cows now uses Joy’s JS Milker. It costs just Rs 7,700 as against the electronic milker priced at Rs 60,000 . RIN was started by Paul Basil, an engineer by training who was keen to turn devices like these into commercially viable products. "We picked up rural innovations depending on the impact they would have. Cost and energy efficiency combined with a commitment to eco-friendliness have been the key elements," says

Basil. Today, RIN deals with 11 innovations. "We nurture the creativity of rural innovations by providing links to research and technical institutes and assisting with product development," says P. V Vijay, chief operating officer of RIN. For the team at RIN, sustainable development becomes more sustainable if the enterprise is based on local needs, utilises local knowledge and is commercially viable. Other innovations in RIN’s portfolio include the varsha rain gun, venus kerosene burner, a banana stem injector, and bio asthira which gives paddy and turmeric farmers a less expensive, fully natural, eco-friendly solution to pest management. Anna Saheb, a 70-year-old sugarcane farmer of Sadalga village in Belgaum district, Karnataka, made the varsha rain gun (Rs 6,000). Varsha saves 40-50 per cent of water used for irrigation, besides saving irrigation time, power and labour consumption. RIN incubated the rain gun and facilitated a technology transfer agreement between Anna Saheb and Servals Automation Pvt Ltd, a Chennai-based company that also makes and markets the venus kerosene stove burner. Developed by V. Thiagarajan, an engineer, it is energy-efficient for kerosene stoves tested by the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) and Anna University. The banana stem injector (Rs 500) was developed by Manoharan, a lathe owner. It injects pesticides into the pseudo-stem of the diseased banana, thus providing assured relief from stem borer, wilt and weevil attacks. One of RIN’s major successes has been the varun tiller, manufactured and marketed by Coimbatore-based Trident Dynamics. "This tiller is just 2.5 feet wide and can easily be manoeuvered in sugarcane and cotton fields and can also double up as a tractor," says K. Chandrasekhar, the innovator. Varun costs Rs 65,000 while its nearest competitor costs Rs 1,10,000. Since varun can be used for weeding operations even three months after the crop is sown, it effectively displaces weedicides and thus also reduces the chemical input into the soil. Trident sold some 120 units in three years, but after RIN entered the picture, sales are touching 120 units a year. The end users too seem happy. Amudha Palanivelu of Athanur, Namakkal, who till recently used to physically milk seven cows every morning today not only uses Joy’s JS milker, but has recommended it to 15 other farmers. Costing Rs 7,700 against an electronic machine’s Rs 60,000, the vacuum milker is one of RIN’s most sought after products. Next in line is a water harvester that will use solar energy to convert salt water to drinking water. If this materialises, millions of Indians will thirst for RIN’s success. Write to Rural Innovations Network Foundation, No. 9, 2nd Floor, Kanakasri Nagar, Cathedral Road, Chennai 600 086. Tel: 91 44 2811 2108. Email:info@rinovations.org

 

 

Gaurav Agarwal

Manager-Airline Relations

Bangalore International Airport Limited

118, Gayatri Lakefront, Outer Ring Road

Bangalore-560024

E-Mail: ga@bialairport.com

 

Tel + 91 80 2354 0000.

Direct + 91 80 2217 6290

Mbl + 91 9343864060

Fax + 91 80 2333 3400

URL: www.bialairport.com

 

The Man Who Caught Rain

In Vidarbha's parched Morshi tehsil, a retired IPS officer shows how to harvest rainwater

Many wonder what keeps 75-year-old Suryakant Jog so active. For the former dgp, retired life isn’t about relaxing in his armchair and complaining about the system.... As active as ever, the ex-cop has embarked upon a mission with a difference. He now helps people harvest rainwater to ensure that they can tide over the dry summer months. Jog’s focus is Vidarbha’s Morshi tehsil, his home turf, where the parched landscape is a grim reminder of how the mindless extraction of groundwater has pushed the water table to an alarming low.

Confronted with a severe water crisis in Chikhaldara, Vidarbha’s only hill station, Jog’s innovative idea to harvest rainwater has helped the area save 10 crore litres of water. With inventive rainwater harvesting, Jog is now turning things around. "Our measures are simple, inexpensive and effective," he says. He is quite confident that the orchards in the area will bloom once again. Jog, who joined the IPS in 1953, was never one to rest on his laurels. Less than four years after retiring

in 1987, he started a residential school at Chikhaldara, Vidarbha’s only hill station. He was immediately confronted by the water crisis in the area. The locals had to buy water despite an annual rainfall of 75 inches. The water crisis was so severe during the summers that Jog had to close down his school for a month during the first two years. While looking for a solution, Jog recalled his childhood meeting with an old lady who collected rainwater falling on her cottage roof and used it all year round. In 1997, convinced that this could bail the school out of its water shortage, Jog installed corrugated sheets and the necessary piping on the 6,000-sq ft roof of the school hostel and collected as much as 3,00,000 litres of water in six specially built tanks. Basic calculations suggested that even this was less than a third of what could have been collected. The school started saving enough water for the dry months. Even eight months after the monsoons, the water was found to be potable. More importantly, it cost only Rs 2.25 per litre, which was far more economical than the prevalent supply systems. With this water already catering to the 500-odd residents of the nearby Pandhari village, Jog wants to extend the concept to more villages. Initially there were very few takers. Many did not believe that harvesting rainwater was a solution or that the water could be retained for months together. Jog had to literally prove that what he was mooting made sense. He set out on his task despite the sceptics. To harvest rainwater draining off the asphalt roads, Jog constructed simple gabion embankments (a structure made of stone strung together with a wire mesh to hold water) in the space between a 15-kilometre stretch of the Morshi-Warud highway and the neighbouring fields. Undeterred by those who doubted his single-handed effort, Jog got the Central Road Research Institute to certify that it was safe to construct these structures four feet below the road level to discourage the water’s capillary action from damaging the surface. To prevent flooding of the fields, the gabions were raised 2 feet above the ground. Each of the 100 structures cost Rs 2,000. Barring some monetary help from the state, Jog himself bore most of the expenses. "Even with four major showers, these structures can collect 22 crore litres of water," he says. "And even if we are left with 10 crore litres after evaporation, it can still work wonders." Within a year, water in 82 nearby wells has surged by 8-10 feet. "With 11,000 kilometres of roads in Maharashtra alone, the idea holds immense promise," says Jog, who has now obtained permission to pilot a similar project along railway lines. Earlier this year, Jog constructed bunds across streaming nallahs at three locations in the Satpura hills. Each bund costing Rs 75,000 has resulted in 150-metre-long embankments storing up to 1 crore litres of water. By next year, Jog plans to extend this to 20 new locations. He only hopes that others will help him in his efforts.As he points out: "Like us, social organisations and MLAs can also raise money and easily replicate this initiative in their areas." Jog can be contacted at: Jog Bungalow, Camp, Amravati, Maharashtra-440602 Tel: (0721) 2662611 or (022) 22041704

 

PRAGYA-AN NGO MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Making a Difference         Outlook's weekly profile of people who work under wraps, beyond the laudatory limelight. Magazine | 19 Jun 2006

Sunil Pillai and Gargi Banerjee   Sow The Sun, Reap The Wind High up on the mountains, survival depends on how you tame the sun, wind and water to serve you At an altitude of 12,000 feet and above, you may not see activists sweating it out. For one, you need lung power. And you need to think different. That’s what Sunil Pillai and Gargi Banerjee did and the net result was an organisation—Pragya—that has made its mark in the higher reaches in areas like eco-conversation and snow harvesting. Sunil and Gargi were your ordinary townsmen looking for some adventure. It was in the course of one such adventure to Leh that the duo stepped back and wondered whether they could give back something to a region they had only taken away from. Pragya began more as a journey and ended as a full-fledged high-altitude NGO. "With most of the attention focused on the Bimaru states, there is very little focus on the Himalayas. With sparse population, most places are simply clubbed as retreats," says Gargi. It was 11 years ago that Pragya began its work of classifying medicinal and aromatic plants in right earnest. The traditional healers were taken into confidence and trained in the art of hardsell. Close to 59 species were identified and a threat assessment study done. Community plantations, kitchen gardens, nurseries followed in keeping with the NGO’s objective of an all-round development of the region. The efforts paid off, and also fetched the Whitley Award for International Nature Conservation in the year 2000—the Oscar equivalent in conservation. Pragya’s project areas are above 8,000 feet that remain under snow for more than six months in a year. It works in five Himalayan states—including Ladakh, J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The organisation today has set up three ethnobotanic centres and five rural museums for the preservation of the local culture in the western and central Himalayas. The first-ever solar wind hybrid system was installed at an altitude of 14,000 feet in Lossar village of Lahaul and Spiti, which fetched another award—the International Energy Globe Award, 2005. The solar energy system today lights a rural library, serves 60 households and a weaving centre used by the women to weave carpets. As Gargi says, "At an altitude of 15,000 feet, you discover that the main sources of energy are wind, sun and water and you try to work them out to their optimum. We realised they had to be tapped." The future? Snow harvesting where trials are on to store snow to create snow reservoirs. Pragya will move on to climate change impact assessment, drought and disaster mitigation. Where else? At high altitudes. Contact A 212 A Sushant Lok 1, Gurgaon. Tel: 9810188166 —Anuradha Raman

 

village Tourism

Economic Times Bangalore;

:Mar 7, 2006;

:Business & IT;

:6

Village tourism initiative goes full steam ahead

Sreeradha D Basu KOLKATA



    THE FM’s budgetary allocation of Rs 830 crore for tourism, up just 5.6% from last year, may have thrown cold water on industry expectations. But the Ministry of Tourism seems to be relatively unfazed. It is, in fact, going ahead full steam with its initiatives to identify the “15 tourist destinations and 50 villages” mentioned for development in the Union Budget.

    Speaking to ET, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Mr Amitabh Kant said, “Right now we are in the midst of talks with state governments to narrow down the 15 destinations that will make the most difference to Indian tourism. We expect to finalise these places within the next 15-20 days.” The Bodhgaya-Rajgir-Nalanda belt in Bihar, among the hotspots for Buddhism, is expected to be among them. So also are Hampi in Karnataka and Maharashtra’s famous Elephanta Caves.

    “Our goal is to create unique destinations where visiting tourists can get a world-class experience. Setting up good civic amenities and ticketing facilities will be among the measures we’ll take up,” said Mr Kant. Endogenous tourism will also get a leg-up thanks to the Tourism Ministry’s efforts. This concept, which revolves around the culture and craft of a location, while seeking to create livelihood opportunities for the local community, will be promoted in 50 villages “with core competency in handicrafts, handlooms and culture”.

    Again, these villages are in the process of being identified. But among those likely to be selected are Pochampalli and Kuchipudi in Andhra Pradesh and Raghurajpur in Orissa, well known for their indigenous arts and crafts According to Mr Kant, most of the traditional crafts of these villages are bought by middlemen, who subsequently sell them in urban areas.

    “We are looking to develop these places as destinations in themselves,” he said. “We want both domestic and international visitors to experience the concept first-hand — not just by staying with and buying goods from the villagers but by learning the tricks of their trade as well,” explained Mr Kant.

 

 

 

Hesco's Watermills

NORTH BY NORTH-EAST: A WATERMILL STORY

Deepti Saxena / New Delhi/ Dehra Dun March 06, 2006

 

After lighting up border villages of Jammu and Kashmir, watermills, which had been in use in the mountains since time immemorial, will now illuminate India's north-eastern region.

In an ambitious plan, Hesco, a Dehra Dun-based voluntary organisation, will install watermills in Nagaland and Manipur as part of its “technology-for-peace” programme, in association with the Indian Army.

The watermill is an eco-friendly device that can harness water power to grind wheat and generate 5 to 8 Kw of electricity. At present, there are 200,000 watermills in the Himalayan region.

According to an estimate prepared by Hesco, watermills can generate 2,500 Mw of power in the Himalayan region, which is also seen as an answer to big dams which often uproot thousands of people and are very expensive.

Hesco Director Anil P Joshi has devised a very simple, inexpensive and environment-friendly technology kit that can upgrade these watermills into micro-hydel project to produce electricity.

Hesco is also running a training centre at its office in the Mehuwala area of Dehradun. Already, people from J&K, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have taken training in watermills.

“We are now focusing our attention towards Nagaland and Manipur and will install watermills in these states," Joshi said.

Hesco has acquired expertise in watermill technology. Already, the organisation, in a joint venture with the Indian Army, has installed nearly 360 watermills in border villages of Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the areas are badly hit by terrorism.

Villages in areas like Kupwara, Baramulla, Kargil, Batalik Drass, Poonch and Rajouri had benefited from watermill campaign, Joshi said.

Last month, Hesco installed its first watermill at the Haipe village of Arunachal Pradesh. "This watermill is working very well," Joshi said, adding more watermills will be installed in near future.

 

 

 

 

MANAGING RESORTS IN AN ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY WAY

Here’s a nice article I read in TOI. Resorts can use this to their advantage. Besides being enviorment friendly, it makes tremendous sense cost-wise.

:Times Of India Bangalore
:Jan 5, 2006

Another Naga revolution
By PANKAJ SEKHSARIA About five km from Kohima on National Highway 39 to Imphal is a small bamboo and cane structure that looks just like any other roadside hotel here. Nothing about it appears worth writing home about until you notice its intriguing name, Dzucharu Hydroger Hotel. Roupgukhrielie Chuse and Khrievi, a young couple from the nearby Phesama village, own the place. Dzucharu, Chuse says, is the name of the small rivulet gushing down the mountain slope just behind their place. Hydroger is the small mechanical contraption installed besides this stream that lights up the space where we sit down to have a cup of tea. Also called pico or micro hydro, the hydroger is a small turbine system that uses the flow of mountain streams to generate between 10 kw and 100 kw of electrical energy. A single hydroger, in a normal situation, could provide decent lighting to a village of 20 houses. It’s the fundamental unit of a system of decentralised power generation that could revolutionise the energy scenario in the country, particularly in the mountainous region. One of the key movers of the hydroger idea in Nagaland is Sancho Odyuo, an executive engineer in the Nagaland government’s Irrigation and Flood Control Department and presently part of the Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development (NEPED) programme that is funded by the Indo-Canadian Environment Facility (ICEF). Odyuo says, with more than 1,000 streams flowing through the state for at least seven months in the year, this system of power generation could earn the state revenue to the tune of Rs 4 crore per annum. The Nagaland State Human Development Report 2004 points out that the state generates only 29 mw of power while the peak load demand is about 75 mw. The report also indicates that the quality of power is low, with frequent curtailment and interruption, transformer failures and low voltage. The (Nagaland Department of Power) DOP’s current financial situation, the report says, is dire with a revenue collection of Rs 19 crore against a power purchase bill of Rs 36 crore. An investment projection of Rs 4,500 crore has been made to raise the generating capacity of the state to 450 mw. A hydroger-based system in comparison has the potential to generate nearly 1,000 mw. It’s a decentralised system that avoids the costs and the infrastructure of installing and linking up to a centralised grid and can light up hundreds of villages in remote mountainous country. It’s a non-polluting source of renewable energy (a number of units could be set up in a cascade along the same stream of water), and importantly, ensures the protection of the catchment to ensure that the water keeps flowing. The village of Phesama, for instance, has already taken the decision to protect the forests that provide water to the Dzucharu river. The unit on the Dzucharu is only the pilot of a process that is now poised for take off. The team is hoping to install, on an average, one hydroger a day in the year 2006 in the state, at a cost of a little less than Rs 2 lakh for each hydroger. The project has been approved by the state government and the Union ministry of non-conventional energy; both have sanctioned Rs 1 lakh each. This would take care of hardware procured from China (220 units) and from manufacturers located in various parts of the country. The rest of the money will be needed for things like purchasing pipes, completing civil works, exposure trips and capacity-building programmes for the communities themselves. ICEF, the state government and the Planning Commission have been approached for this support. The community itself is expected to contribute roughly 10% of the project cost primarily in kind; with stones and boulders and their own labour. The plan is to install hydrogers in 1,200 villages in Nagaland. By 2020, Odyuo says, Nagaland will be in a position to even sell power generated from these hydrogers.

The writer is with Kalpavriksh, an environment NGO.

IDEAS FOR 2006

Here are some interesting thoughts which cross my mind while I complete the long & arduous drive from work to home and home to work everyday: Some great product ideas & other stuff

 

1. Traffic light Index for Hoardings- Is there are rationale to the price for advertising on various hoardings on the road or does it just depend on how well you can negotiate. Should’nt there be an Index/ Matrix for the same? One good way is to use the length of traffic light stop as an Index to price them. This ofcourse is aside from the usual other things that matter- Length/Width/Angle/distance & visibility. If there can be a Mcdonald Index for PPP, why not this?
2. Gillette – Have you ever noticed the amount of shelf space Gillette has in majority of the Grocery stores/ Super Markets? All credit to them for putting innovative products out but they are always overcharged because of the almost monopolistic market share Gillette has. I would love to have their shares (at par at that)! But the issue is: how come other FMCG companies fail to take note of this? Park Avenue & Old Spice make some very feeble efforts and relegated to the back shelves. Whatever happened to a good company called SUPER MAX. Also, did you know that COLGATE actually makes shaving foams too?
3. Diabetics- My father in law is a diabetic. It is a well known fact that Diabeties has reached epidemic proportions in Indian. We just have to look at our traditional medicinal remedies to counter these. A good product, which I used, but it is surprisingly not available in India- is “Karela Chai”- Tea bags made out normal tea and dried shreds of bitter gourd. A hit in the far east cultures? Perhaps “Himalayas” should launch this in India?
4. Women Safety products-  Bad Behavior in public with women and Sexual assault has been going up. Infact, one of our staff who was in a frontline job resigned recently because she could not take this abuse both physical & verbal in nature from passengers. While more and more women want to work and it necessitates dealing with all kinds of people, surprisingly noone wants to prepare to preempt these attacks. This is a great opportunity for products like the well-tested “RED PEPPER SPRAY” which women can use to thwart any such attempts. Marketers! Wake up!   
5. Eye care   - Noticed the number of Opticians stores which have come up with more people using computers and worse watching TV? They are doing great business but I just wish eyes were strained due to reading more books!  But should’nt they also be telling people about eye Care- There are products like eye Pillows which opticians should sell in order to add value to their clients.
6. Resorts Connectivity – If you look at the business resorts do over the year- they are full on weekends and completely empty on weekdays. One reason is ofcourse that they are not offering enough incentives to people to travel on weekdays by lowering their prices, but the other reason is that it is so difficult to reach the good ones. People spend more time driving to these resorts than at the resort itself. That should change. Resorts should get together to build helipads and gravel air-strips (3 to 5 years in the horizon..)
7. Fire Safety-  Salesmen for fire extinguishers manufactures must be doing a bad job- Book shops, Cloth stores etc. all do not feel a need to buy one. or may be it has to do with our culture of poor planning for safety.
8. Backpacking in India  Can backpacking catch on in India? After all, we are one of the youngest populations and will remain so for years to come. With low cost Airlines around, travel is already affordable but not so the accommodation. Right time for a Youth hostel Chain or Branded Home-stays?

 

Happy 2006! May more entrepreneurs be born this year!