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Journalism of Courage
The runaway success of a newly-designed solar lantern has come to spell new hope for the power-starved hinterland of the country. Launched in October last year,the Kiran,or S10,a kerosene lantern replacement for rural India and Africa,is priced at Rs 549 and lasts up to eight hours on a single day of solar charging.
When the Sikshana Foundation loaned these solar lanterns to over a hundred Class 10 students in Kanakapura,Karnataka for the duration of the board exams earlier this year,Kiran,touted as the worlds most affordable solar light scored a big hit with the students whose study time increased at an average of two-three hours per day. None of the students wanted to return the lights. They offered to pay for them, says Mandeep Singh,COO and India operations incharge of D.light,a global design company whose eco-friendly lights have impacted over 1 million people in 37 countries.
The sturdy lantern it withstood rainfall,a drop test of 2 metres and an adults weight on it - comes with a powerful LED with a life of 50,000 hours,or eight-10 years and an eco-friendly nickel metal hydride battery that has a life of nearly two years. If you compare apples and apples, Singh says,it is the cheapest,high-quality solar light in the world. A kerosene lantern costs about Rs 150 a month,so Kiran pays for itself in just four months.
And its set to get cheaper. The aim is to design a $5-$6 solar lamp. About 88 million households in India dont have grid electricity. A lot of them have a daily income of $5 or less. We want to bridge that gap, he says.
D.light,the labour of love of Stanford Design School students and social entrepreneurs Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun,has its India office in New Delhi and has undertaken extensive field trials in the villages of Uttar Pradesh,Orissa and Maharashtra before releasing its end-user-specific products - Goldman attended high school in India and moved to East of Kailash,Delhi for two years to launch the India operations.
India constitutes about a third of D.lights market. Our lights were recently picked up by WWF and other NGOs for post-flood relief work in Leh. We have partnered with Mahindra & Mahindra,ITCs e-Choupal,SKS Microfinance,Nexus India Capital and NGOs such as Dharma; besides we are supported by the World Bank and the Shell Foundation, Singh says. D.light has offices in India and Tanzania,a manufacturing unit in China and a design team in Hong Kong.
Kiran,winner of several international design awards,including the prestigious Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in July this year,has been well-received by rural families with limited access to electricity,farmers,women,school-going children and urban vendors. Whole villages like New Keringa in southern Orissa have switched from kerosene lamps to Kiran. CEO Goldman writes in his blog that on a field trip to villages near Aligarh,Uttar Pradesh,he was surprised to find D.lights products were useful to and loved by customers who are quite rich by rural standards.
Singh remembers the owner of a fleet of buses in Pilibhit placing an order for two Kiran lights,and returning to buy four of D.lights other flagship product,Nova. The Nova,priced at Rs 1,699,comes with four light modesambient,bed-side,regular and intensiveand can charge a mobile phone in less than two hours. Its heartening to see the products being put to good use. A samosa -seller outside our Delhi office reported a 30 per cent increase in sales after ditching her gas lamp for Nova, he says.
