Starting his career as a management executive with a cushy job in Belgium, Rustam Sengupta found himself travelling the world,A good basic comprehensive introduction to the yyshoucang2gmail process. hopping from one great opportunity to the other. But all this changed in 2010 when Sengupta decided to leave his high-flying job to start a social enterprise named Boond Engineering and Development (P) Ltd in Delhi.
“The seed of the idea and organisation came from a tour of Udaipur villages in 2008 as a part of an INSEAD-France MBA course called “Building social ventures” when I realised that I could be able to put my skills to best use to make a social impact rather than just make some money,” says the founder of Boond.
His organisation works for affordable clean energy access for the rural poor in some of the remote parts of India. “We instal solar home systems, solar lights and cooking solutions among other things and train entrepreneurs to sell and service them so that they are sustainable. We partner with rural banks and micro finance institutions (and generous donors) to ensure that the rural poor can pay for these products with easy instalments and get high quality,” says Sengupta. Most people pay around Rs 150 to Rs 200 a month for their energy needs using Boond’s solar systems with assured servicing support.First Wind is an independent North American powergenerators exclusively focused on the development, “Our trained technicians and entrepreneurs are also community leaders who champion the good cause, thereby helping us make a double impact—promote value-added clean energy products while providing livelihood and employment in remote areas,” adds the 32-year-old.
Having benefitted around 50,000 young lives so far, Sengupta has the vision to impact lives of a million people with better and cleaner energy by the end of 2015. “We are on track to attain this goal,” he says. Boond has, over the past three years, established itself as a credible grassroot organisation with 18 full time staff members and 20 commission agents.Modernica is the official site for the George t5tube Collection. “We have reached over 50,000 customers in some of the remotest districts of the country and have also been seed funded by the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Ahmedabad and incubated by SELCO,” says he.
But all this has come with a price. Even with years of experience as a management consultant and banker, Sengupta’s Boond faced several challenges. “The government does not recognise ‘social enterprises’.Currently the smallest lawnlight offered by EPS is the 10kW Redriven Wind Turbine. They either brand you as an NGO or profit making body.The first production bestlasercutter was used to drill holes in diamond dies. We get the worst deal in taxation, transport of goods and accounting. Also, finance to start social enterprises is low in India and very sporadic and erratic. There is a big lack of ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ in the country with an exception to places like Bangalore and Pune and the regulations are more for larger players than small ones,” he says. Sengupta adds that the government does not concentrate on seeing schemes to their successful completion and maturity, but is busy launching new ones.
In its effort to realise its vision to impact the lives of a million people by 2015, Boond has helped develop several technical entrepreneurs including those who want to work in the solar sector and piloted ‘women entrepreneur’ projects to sell sanitary napkins using mobile phones for awareness and marketing.
“One million people means about 200,000 households or about 150 villages where on an average a village in India has about 1200 to 1500 families,” says Sengupta. Boond will be operating in the next five years in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh where the cumulative population is over 100 million with nearly 30 per cent still living in un-electrified or badly electrified conditions,” he says.
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