I am a socialist by education and a capitalist by profession. I am hence very confused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan for Clean India Campaign.
The Campaign has all the similarities of a typical silicon valley startup dream campaign.
The Campaign has all the similarities of a typical silicon valley startup dream campaign.
- Market gap
- Healthy ecosystem
- Consumer need
- Very large market segment with similar need
All these should be driving plenty of companies to have taken advantage of this campaign and started making money.
Delving deeper , I see some issues that could be learnings and also a few opportunities.
Delving deeper , I see some issues that could be learnings and also a few opportunities.
#1 - Public-Private cooperation
This is a very abused word right now in the Indian governance. It rarely helps the normal citizen. I am not sure how it helps the private players. It does help the bureaucrats shift the blame though.
Public-Private cooperation will not work for India with such a small concentration of urban space and will lead to skewed demand and supply that will make the issue worse.
What we should instead look at is having better policies and regulations for the private players to make use of the space. Make the entire sanitation business lucrative enough for them to be involved in. Private players will not get involved just because the Prime Minister says so. The government should follow it up with policies / guidelines and with adequate capital arrangements for the private players
Public-Private cooperation will not work for India with such a small concentration of urban space and will lead to skewed demand and supply that will make the issue worse.
What we should instead look at is having better policies and regulations for the private players to make use of the space. Make the entire sanitation business lucrative enough for them to be involved in. Private players will not get involved just because the Prime Minister says so. The government should follow it up with policies / guidelines and with adequate capital arrangements for the private players
#2 - The renewable energy fiasco
By all rational means, solar energy should be the most popular. However, it is not. There are multiple reasons for that. One of them is bad policy around renewable energy vendors and very bad incentives for households to adopt it.
The other main reason is the fear of Indian equipment suppliers that China would monopolize the entire solar panel industry. While the fear has been validated with what happened in the US, we need to provide the right impetus to balance it as well. (Bloomberg article on the chinese dumping of solar panels )
We have to provide the right regulatory policy to make sure that the sanitation industry does not end up the renewable energy way.
The other main reason is the fear of Indian equipment suppliers that China would monopolize the entire solar panel industry. While the fear has been validated with what happened in the US, we need to provide the right impetus to balance it as well. (Bloomberg article on the chinese dumping of solar panels )
We have to provide the right regulatory policy to make sure that the sanitation industry does not end up the renewable energy way.
#3 - Citizen needs
We seem to be borrowing ideas from other countries where the problem is entirely different. We have not created the right eco-system of better ways to handle solid waste that will be generated once all the waste is collected.
PM Modi seems to have rushed into the idea without proper means of thinking. We have not engaged at all the levels to source ideas and try to see where the gaps are that can be filled before taking up an initiative like this. While it is certainly great that he is personally driving this, we need better thought out plans.
PM Modi seems to have rushed into the idea without proper means of thinking. We have not engaged at all the levels to source ideas and try to see where the gaps are that can be filled before taking up an initiative like this. While it is certainly great that he is personally driving this, we need better thought out plans.
- We do not have enough garbage disposal vendors in any city / state in India.
- There are no garbage disposal facilities that can handle the quantum of waste that is generated today.
- We have enormous landfills that have so much waste that needs to be segregated.
- We do not have enough workforce that is educated to enforce any legislation that exist or will be brought forward to support sanitation.
Opportunities
There is a great space for a consulting agency to tie up with even a city and start providing a blue print for how to make sure a city can handle the solid waste that gets generated. The collection and segregation of solid waste can be easily privatized and more private players brought in.
The cities can then start providing litter free zones that can be slowly expanded. This will also help scale the workforce to learn and sensitize the citizens on sanitation.
Slowly more vendors can come in providing multiple options in sanitation like automating cleaning of toilets, pumping out solid waste to smaller bins, segregating waste into multiple categories and recyclable waste.
It remains to be seen how sanitation grows as an industry in India. A case in point is the soda industry - that was seen as a replacement for clean water - till the packaged water industry was launched and the soda industry is dying a slow death in India.
The cities can then start providing litter free zones that can be slowly expanded. This will also help scale the workforce to learn and sensitize the citizens on sanitation.
Slowly more vendors can come in providing multiple options in sanitation like automating cleaning of toilets, pumping out solid waste to smaller bins, segregating waste into multiple categories and recyclable waste.
It remains to be seen how sanitation grows as an industry in India. A case in point is the soda industry - that was seen as a replacement for clean water - till the packaged water industry was launched and the soda industry is dying a slow death in India.
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