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DESI power plants
installed for the 100 villages EmPP project require
skilled people for administration and people with basic
technical and business skills to run micro-enterprises
that use the plant’s electricity and make it profitable
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Currently,
villagers lack business or technical skills
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Men leave
the village for the cities once they are trained because
they can make more money there
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Women who
are trained prefer to stay in village with their families
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Train women and men in Bihar to carry out administration of
power plants and start their own micro-enterprises |
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–Located in a
larger village with central location
–Cluster centers
will be co-located with the town’s power plant
–Facility will
include an office, a classroom, one vehicle and several computers
Review student’s
applications to the DESI_MANTRA program,
–Manage the class
scheduling, accounting, and administration of the DESI_MANTRA
program for its 10 villages,
–Conduct the
training for the DESI Business Administration Track in its facility,
and
–Dispatch trainers
to the 10 villages for the micro-enterprise training
•Business
administration training
–Will be held in the
cluster center
–3 hours per day, 6
days/week for 6 months
••Micro-enterprise training
–Will be held in local
villages
–3 months of business
training will be conducted by trainer from cluster center facility
–Cluster center trainer
will travel to local villages until people in the villages are qualified
to train others
–2 week training
internships will be conducted by local micro-enterprises, especially
DESI_MANTRA graduates
–For new village
micro-enterprises, student will travel and train up to 4 weeks with the
equipment manufacturer
–Village-based lending
groups
•BOVS (power plant
cooperative)
•GRID (power plant
cooperative)
•Saki Saheli (women’s
support group)
–Micro-finance
institutions
•DESI_MANTRA plans to
partner with a MFI lending organization to facilitate loan to its students
•Currently difficult for
villagers to obtain because they often require a business plan and credit
history
–Train the Trainer –
students pay for tuition by training others
–DESI Power Scholarship –
students receive full tuition amount in exchange for a 3 year work
commitment to DESI Power
–In exchange for
training, students agree to give MANTRA a percentage of profits from their
micro-enterprise
•Women gain financial and
personal independence
•Women learn business
skills they need to work in an office administrative job or run their own
micro-enterprise
–They will have a
business plan when they finish training
–DESI_MANTRA will set
aside a portion of their tuition loan if obtained from village-based
lending group to pay them as a stipend throughout training
–Students use stipend to
directly pay back portion of their student loan building credit history
–Students are very close
to meeting MFI loan requirements by the time they finish their training
••2 distinct market segments
–Land less laborers:
Potential Micro-entrepreneur
–Potential Business
Administrators
•Profile, training needs
and willingness to pay are very different for each segment
–Price discrimination is
possible
–Segments will be
attracted to different tracks
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•Land less
labourers: potential Micro-entrepreneur
–Lives in a rural
village
–Likely to be
illiterate or with very little education
–Works up to 15 hours
per day
–Earns approximately
50-70 rupees per day for 6 months out of the year
–Willing to pay 600
for a 6 month training course
–Time is very
valuable; she has very little time to devote to training
–Wants training so
that she can start a business to supplement the family income
–Market size of over
100 women per village per year with an average village size of 2000
people
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••Potential Business Administrators
–Lives in semi rural
town
–Completed 12+ level
of education
–Little work
experience, might be a teacher
–Willing to pay 5000
rupees (maximum) for 6 month training course
–Wants training so
that she can have an office job
–Market size of over
1000 per town per year
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–The model assumes that
training is broken down into two distinct training tracks;
Micro-Enterprise (ME), and Business Administration (BA), with bio-business
skill training included in the ME track.
–The ME track only bears
the practical internship training costs for one person per specific ME
within that village as that person will then act as the trainer.
•After year 1, trainers
for the micro-enterprise track will come from the village itself,
eliminating the transportation cost
•Villages are rolled out
as each new cluster is set up. Therefore, village # 11 is rolled out as
cluster #2 is set up
•Cluster centers are
assumed to be in operation soon after capital is invested for that
specific cluster
| Outside funding sources |
Amount (US $) |
Percentage |
| Socially responsible financial institutions (SRFIs) |
348,477 |
8% |
| Capital equipment partners (CEPs) |
261,358 |
6% |
| Foundations |
3,746,130 |
86% |
| Total |
4,355,965 |
100% |
••In order to track and
demonstrate the benefits of the DESI_MANTRA program across financial,
social, and environmental categories metrics need to be put in place for
each of the villages rolled out and for DESI_MANTRA as a whole
•This will be overseen by
the DESI_MANTRA cluster manager and the corporate manager
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Environmental |
Financial |
Social |
KGs of Biomass KW
Burned vs. Diesel KW
Reduction of carbon
burned per capita at the village level due to the DESI plant run by
DESI_MANTRA trainees
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Cost of Living/Earned
Wages Ratio progress
Educational
improvements measured by hours of training
Money saved buying
biomass vs. diesel based electricity
Increase in
microfinance loans made within the villages
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••Identify
and build relationships with micro-finance institutions and small banks
•Identify and build
relationships with IT companies in Bangalore for computer donation
•Work with Saki Saheli to
identify first group of micro-enterprise trainees who they think will be
the most successful
•Hire woman from Araria
as a manager for the DESI_MANTRA program
•Begin contacting US
foundations
•Set up metrics across
Environmental, Financial, and Social parameters to demonstrate success at
the individual, village, and program levels
•It is recommended that
only one person per cluster per specialized micro-enterprise is sent to
manufacturer’s training
•Training for school
children
•Offer higher-level or
follow on classes for which DESI_MANTRA can charge more
•DESI_MANTRA owned
micro-enterprises and store
•Equity investment in
trainee’s micro-enterprises for profit sharing revenue
•License the DESI power
logo
•Corporate and university
sponsors
•License the training
program to next 100 Villages
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