Symbiosis Project to Help Light Up Village Homes
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
PUNE: Students from the Social Entrepreneurship and Consulting Cell of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management ( SIBM) have come up with a project to provide low-cost lighting units to rural households without electricity.
Addressing a news conference on Saturday, Kailash Yar, the founder of the project ’Ashadeep’, said, “We have been working with self-help groups for the last two years. During our market research, we found that villagers required emergency lights due to frequent power outages in villages. We looked at the Phillippines model of providing lighting units without the need for electricity. We started working on this model here and after six months of testing, we came up with a product that is economical and useful to villagers at night.”
Vinod Shastri, faculty in-charge of the cell, said, “The device has a system wherein it lights up a room during the day with the help of a liquid solution (mixture of bleach and water) in a plastic bottle while the solar panel charges a battery. When the sun sets, the charged battery illuminates the light emitting diodes ( LED) in the device at nights, or during power outages.”
Total 15 lighting units have been installed in Nande village and the students are planning to install 35 more. The entire expense is being borne by Symbiosis Institute.
Source: The Times of India (link opens in a new window)
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