7/23/2019 The Earth at This Innovators Feet _ Business Line
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8/4/2014 The earth at this innovators feet | Business Line
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/weekend-life/the-earth-at-this-innovators-feet/article3865588.ece
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The earth at this innovators feet
BEENA PARMAR
heel of change: Mansukhbhai Prajapati with his Mitticool
products.
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ww.alibaba.comansukhbhai Prajapati remoulded his familys
struggling pottery business to produce the Mitticool range of
ingenious
earthenware, including a fridge that works without
electricity.
Reporting on the devastation and thousands of lives lost during
the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, local newspapers hadhis intriguing
headline describing the havoc wreaked at a potters colony: Garibon
na fridgeno bhookon (Pieces ofhe poor peoples fridge). Among the
debris were the shards of hundreds of broken clay pitchers.
hat headline proved to be a game-changer for Wakaner-based
potter Mansukhbhai Prajapati, who literally pickedp the pieces to
begin afresh on a remarkably innovative idea the Mitticool
refrigerator, which is made of mud andorks without electricity.
Originally from Morbi village in Rajkot, south Gujarat,
Prajapati, a tenth-standard dropout, began working at a tea-tall
after his father discouraged him from entering the familys pottery
business as the income was negligible. Later,e became a supervisor
at a roof-tile manufacturing company and eventually, in 1989,
returned to his passion forottery by producing tavdi or tawa
(frying pan) from clay.
lthough his father-in-law desired him to continue working at the
roof-tile company, Prajapatis wife encouraged himo experiment with
the family business all over again.
It was this abiding interest in innovation that led him to
develop the Mitticool water filter way back in 1997.
lot of rigorous experimentation went into his work on the
Mitticool refrigerator, which he launched in 2002.
Besides a tank for cooling and storing 10 litres of water, the
earthenware refrigerator has two compartments fortoring 5 kg of
vegetables, fruits and other food.
It takes about seven days to make one Mitticool fridge. The
special terracotta clay used is baked at 1,200 degreeCelsius to
harden it. Like any clay pot used to cool water, the fridge too
works by keeping the inside temperature 10
egrees lower than the outside.
he natural cooling process keeps vegetables and fruits fresh for
up to five days, and milk products for up to threeays.
Measuring 27 inches high and 15 inches wide, the fridge costs Rs
3,000 to Rs 3,500. As it works without electricity, its especially
useful in villages that experience frequent power cuts.
Each Mitticool refrigerator fetches Prajapati a profit margin of
Rs 250. The tawa is priced Rs 150300, while theater filter and clay
pressure cooker manufactured by him are priced between Rs 500 and
Rs 700. Interestingly, eachf his products is decorated with
handmade designs, and his tawascome with approved food-grade
coating.
Since 2005, Prajapati has sold more than 6,000 Mitticool
refrigerators, with most of the sales coming from SouthIndia (apart
from Gujarat) including Kerala, Bangalore, Hyderabad and
Chennai.
I want to make more such eco-friendly products that are
affordable to the poorest of the poor, says thisntrepreneur
brimming with novel ideas. His products have also received ISO
certification.
irm against huge odds
But his path to success has been far from smooth. Burdened under
heavy loans, Prajapati stuck to his ideas against alldds.
From 2002 to 2004, I had a huge debt of Rs 19 lakh. Of this, Rs
11 lakh was a bank loan, he recalls. I sold my housen order to
repay my debt, as I was on the verge of bankruptcy. But by the
grace of God, my family supported mehrough the ordeal. I was
determined to prove that a clay fridge is possible.
His tenacity was rewarded in the form of help from a professor
at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.nil Gupta,
Executive Vice-Chairman of the National Innovation Foundation did
not just give him FINANCIALupport but also recommended him to Rural
Innovators of India, a Forbesguide to rural entrepreneurs.
Observing that Indias villages have become a hotbed of
innovation, Gupta points out that it is the rural poor whoevelop
these inventions out of necessity. Several of the people on this
(Forbes) list have just elementary schoolducation and nothing
else.
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