Pune Inc: Startup founder who wanted to illuminate world is getting there, one solar lantern at a time

“Ever since I can remember, I have liked to fly kites and build castles in the air as high as these could go. One of my favourite fantasies was to replace kerosene lamps globally with solar lanterns. Only when I started working towards this dream in 2008 that I realised that dreaming is a very easy task but executing it is something else,” he says.

For one, how can the startup cover every needy home in the country? Bootstrapped with Rs 20 lakh of Dhande’s savings, the solar lanterns, which were conceptualised and designed by the late Deepali Dhande, an engineer and Dhande’s wife, have reached more than 20,000 people in the Northeast, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bengal, Odisha and others but vast swathes of the country remain untapped. This is largely due to inaccessible terrain and shortage of funds and other resources. During the pandemic, the company made a turnover of Rs 40 lakh in three months. Last year, IRDO’s turnover was less than Rs 8 lakh.

Sachin Dhande is the founder of the social innovation startup Infinite Research and Development Organisation Private Ltd (IRDO) (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)

Dhande’s approach to business is guided by a sense of duty rather than profit-making. The initiative to make solar lanterns is also closely connected to his NGO called Shardasharm Foundation. The inspiration for the solar lanterns is his own childhood in a lower middle-class family when he sometimes had to study by the light of kerosene lanterns. In his home in Hadapsar, an image of Swami Vivekananda looks down from the living room wall at the solar lanterns arranged on the table and the floor.

On the centre table, Dhande has arranged models that chart the evolution of his product, from the first model that resembles a flat, round bicycle bell through a design that’s closest to traditional lanterns with a bulbous glass chimney to the present iteration called Bhaskar that is small and flat.

“Bhaskar ticks the boxes for functionality and utility. It is easy to set up, generates up to 3 watts of light and negligible heat. It can be set up in a home for cooking or studying, hung from a cycle bar for travelling at night or strapped to the knee of a farmer harvesting crops at night. We have found that in some villages, people prefer hanging the lamps in the cattle sheds so that wild animals do not get in,” says Dhande. Among the users are tribal villages, schools in the Northeast and the National Disaster Response Force.

“In 2020 and 2022, local NGOs of Japan used the Bhaskar lantern in flood-affected rural areas in the Nagano district. This was done with support from Ashok Saraf, Founder Director of Science and Technology Park, University of Pune, and our mentor. This proves that the solar lanterns have a technical acceptance globally and can be used in disaster situations,” says Dhande. Bhaskar lasts six to eight hours in the bright mode, and 24 hours in dim mode.

Kerosene, a product of hydrocarbons, is a common domestic fuel in India, especially for the poor though usage has been declining on the back of the government cutting subsidies. On the other hand, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has stressed that “India is endowed with vast solar energy potential. About 5,000 trillion kWh per year energy is incident over India’s land area with most parts receiving 4-7 kWh per sq. m per day. Solar photovoltaic power can effectively be harnessed providing huge scalability in India”.

The panel of Dhande’s solar lantern is manufactured in Secunderabad, the plastic body in Warje, Pune, the metal swing in Nasik and the circuit board in Pune. “The battery is not being manufactured in India. We were buying it from Korea a few years ago but now get it from China,” says Dhande.

Experience has taught him to keep the mechanics of Bhaskar simple. It can be assembled by children as well as people with visual, hearing and speech impaired people. After Bhamburde in Maharashtra, it was put together by a group of villagers whose homes had been destroyed by Cyclone Nisarga and Tauktae in 2020. The company gives a guarantee of five years but lanterns that were supplied to Arunachal Pradesh are going strong even after seven years. “One of the reasons that the C20 selected me is that I can talk in front of 150 delegates so that the idea for solar lanterns can be impelled across the globe wherever it is needed,” he says.