Problems
600 million people in India don’t have the access to basic toilet facilities.
Issues plaguing the public/community toilet. Issues like vandalism, irregular maintenance, high operational expenditure are very common for Indian toilets. lack of basic facilities like water, electricity, ventilation inside the toilets.
Solutions:
● Developed a toilet design which is essentially indestructible, integrated with new-age technology (RFID-IoT), is self-sustainable in terms of energy consumption, waste disposal and revenue generation.
● Grey water recycling and how it is helpful, using less water to flush
Other points discussed:
● Revenue model and prices of toilets
● Advertisements on toilet gates.
● Reason on how he started it, going to IRMA then working at his family business in manufacturing and after the swachh Bharat mission deciding on making toilets in a different way.
● Government collaborations: Swatcch Bharat etc.
● Self-cleaning model
Takeaways from the journey:
● Discover your purpose: He graduated with an engineering degree and went for a software job. But felt it not being for him. So next, he did what most engineers go for i.e. MBA, he joined IRMA. IRMA was a turning point in his life, he discovered himself. He wanted to be a social entrepreneur. He got a purpose to make products that would positively affect the lives of millions of people living in underserved communities.
● Spotting the opportunity: He realised that there is a real shortage of public toilets in India. And wherever the public toilets are available, they are filthy, unhygienic and vandalised. Then in 2015, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was the trigger for him to assume that there is a business opportunity. He took a call that he will build toilets and stick to the sanitation industry. Later, he worked with the government under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
● Not shying away from taking up taboo issue: Toilets are are something no one likes to talk about but is a 32 billion dollar industry in india itself. Looking at one such opportunity where the market is big and where you can benefit many people at the same time, who have to go on roads and face harassments and shamings
Organization Structure:
● Most of the core group of the company are friends or family
● Small team of efficiently working people. Most of them have a background in the corporate sector before shifting to the development sector.
● Outsourcing advisories however for consulting, hired specialist in the field, legal consultants
● There is good representation of men and women — 4 men and 3 women. Men and women have different viewpoints, ideas, and market insights, which enables better problem solving. But when it comes to people installing the toilets, people going for maintenance of the installed toilets, they prefer working with men.
Practices/ Policies which you though are very unique and could be replicated
Challenging itself and expanding network:
The organisation was continuously participating in the events of credible organisations and the government. In the initial stages, people often said that their idea won’t work in India, but through the competitions, they kept introducing people about their idea and this really helped. This played in multiple ways for them. They were getting feedback about their product, building network relations, and many times, people would reach out to them for their product. Mayank said, low times were the high times, as the products were being appreciated around the globe.
Resilience in times of crisis:
Getting the land from the government is one thing, then comes the challenges from the local community. Mayank said that there are some people who come and protest that this is not the place to build toilets, we will not let you build the toilet. They handle this by showing the permission letters from the govt. In Jhansi, they faced protests from Police authorities as well. At that time, they reached out to the local police commissioner to sort the issue and the protest was then taken back.
Grey water recycling:
Grey water recycling is something which is possible not only in a large organization or an enterprise but also in our daily lives. Like the water recycling from RO water purifiers and using it in toilets. Using the waste water after washing clothes to water the trees etc.
Practices/policies which you aren’t convinced about, stating reasons for the same and your way of achieving the same goal
High product cost
I believe the range of toilets which range from 1.5 lakhs to 4.5 lakhs. Even though there is no doubt about the quality of the product but when something is built for public use and something which is in demand and which is wanted in villages where more than 70% of Indian population lives in villages. I believe it should be cheaper and used by the community at large. Revenue source should be changed. People from the lowest rungs won’t be able to charge daily money for toilets. Thus for these toilets revenue generation models should be changed.
Takeaway/ input/ understanding/ assessment or comparison with a similar organization from your experience
● Innovation to build smart and eco-friendly toilets
● Sticking to principles (Moving to private sector instead of paying bribe)