Forty-year-old Amit Chugh has always hated the dark. As a ten-year-old boy, he would often visit the then upcoming ITC paper plant at Bhadrachalam in the backward Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh with his father, who oversaw the project. ?I was struck by the fact that here was this high-technology paper mill completely surrounded by darkness. If you go further into the interiors of India, it?s even worse.?
That experience inspired him to co-found Cosmos Ignite Innovations in 2004, which manufactures solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. Incubated by the Stanford Design School, the company is headquartered in Delhi with offices in the US and the UK. Chugh and Cosmos co-founder Matthew Scott, a Standford University MBA graduate, invented and patented a shock- and water-proof reading lamp meant for small hutments called the Mighty Light.
Spending close to $1 million on the venture over the past three years, the lamp?which lasts 30 years if used eight hours daily?is now manufactured at the company?s Gurgaon factory and distributed globally. The Mighty Light?s pricetag: Rs 2,500. ?It costs about Rs 1,000 less than the government-distributed solar lamp,? says Chugh with pride, adding, ?Our target market is people who earn below $2 a day.?
Chugh says since the Mighty Light is solar-powered?it is recharged via a miniature solar panel?his lamp scores over traditional hurricane lamps that use fossil fuels like kerosene. So, not only is the Mighty Light cheap to run, it?s environment friendly as well?ideal for India?s 300 million people who lack electricity and 80,000 villages that are off the power grid.
It?s been an illuminating journey for the ten-year-old that shuddered at the darkness of rural Andhra Pradesh. After graduating from St Xavier?s College, Mumbai, in 1988, Chugh went on to Oxford to study politics, philosophy and economics. In 1993, he returned to do an MBA from Manipal?s TA Pai Academy. He then joined Coats Plc in Jakarta, Indonesia. ?In 2002, I moved back from Jakarta. The government was opening up the power sector to private companies and, therefore, I wanted to set up base here,? says Chugh.
Chugh then set up two small hydro-power projects, Kullu Valley Power and Fozal Power in Himachal Pradesh at a cost of around $30 million, which he largely borrowed from banks.
When the three projects are completed, they will generate 25 megawatts of power. ?One had ideas, but no capital, no inheritance. It is only in the last three or four years that capital is available and the government is supporting private entry into utilities,? he adds.
Clearly, the timing was right. So, combining a latent talent for entrepreneurship?all his family members are professionals?with a zeal for power projects, a venture in the energy sector was an almost natural choice for Chugh. Though he does have one grouse: the long time it takes to obtain regulatory approvals. He says, ?There are something like 60 different approvals to be got, then you have a power-purchase agreement. Only after all that do you get financial closure. Then the power project is constructed and finally power is generated. My project is currently at the stage of financial closure.?
Chugh wasn?t cooling his heels while his hydro-power projects went through the necessary paces, either. He turned his spotlight on solar energy, as renewable and clean energy sources were his primary interest. There was another advantage of this environment-friendly source of power as well. ?The power sector is highly regulated and requires a lot of clearances to set up a plant, whereas if you look at solar energy?in terms of approvals?you hardly require any. In fact, none at all,? he explains.
Probably remembering the plight of the folk living in the vicinity of the ITC factory at Bhadrachalam, Chugh sought something that would be useful to those at the bottom of the pyramid: people who had no light, no hope and very little money. So, off he went to the Stanford incubator and met Scott, who had completed his MBA there. ?We were both in our 30s. Having electric light in villages can bring about social change and you can leapfrog development. So, we decided to make a white LED powered by solar panels.?
Besides developing countries in Africa, South America and other parts of Asia, India remains the key market for Chugh?s Mighty Light. ?We work with a team of NGOs in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. We have now been operational for 18 months. From January 2006, we have been producing 3,000 units a year, and we expect revenues of $1.8 million next fiscal.?
Chugh, who is married with two children, says his success mantra is ?innovate to empower?.
?You cannot go on doing more of the same?basically, you have to be open to new ideas. You have to be able to take micro-energy to the poor in any developing economy. In future, we expect to have a suite of products for them,? he says.
