When the Prime Minister Speaks About You

Everyone doesn't get such a chance when the Prime Minister (PM) recognises your work and mentions it publicly. Even if you are not mentioned by name, so what? It is your work which gets recognised.

This is the story of a fellow BITSian whose social venture in Hyderabad was mentioned by the PM recently in his monthly talk Mann Ki Baat मन की बात.

Devender K Ahuja graduated in Electrical Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1975. After successfully running Ahuja Engineering for more than 30 years, he and his daughter Shruti ventured into Solid Waste Management. IICT had developed technology for converting vegetable waste into electricity and bio gas using bio-methanation. Ahuja Engineering Services (AES) thereafter designed and set up a plant at the largest vegetable mandi- Bowenpally wholesale market- in Hyderabad. The plant is a perfect example of PPP model of governance. See the visuals below.

Visual courtesy TOI.

This 'waste to energy and fuel' story was mentioned and applauded by the PM. See the video below and listen to PM's voice appreciating the waste disposal plant.

Readers may view a TEDx talk about the efforts of AES here. The concept of waste to energy is explained in this video.

We did a quick conversation with the social entrepreneurs. Excerpts:

How does it feel to be mentioned by the Prime Minister himself?

It feels like life has come a full circle. All our hard work, persistence and conviction is finally getting acknowledged. Thanks to our PM, this important yet neglected issue of waste management has taken centre stage. The implementation in this area has been slow by both government and private industries, so having the PM himself congratulating our work is very satisfying. 

When did it all start and what are the hurdles that you faced?

It all started when my younger daughter Shruti came back from the US after completing her Masters & leaving the Job with AT&T in 2012 to explore opportunities in India.

She was not inclined to carry forward our business of executing electrical contracts. We encouraged her to become an entrepreneur and to look for new problem areas in the Society. She took about a year brainstorming various ideas. After visiting various poultry farms she homed on to the issue of poultry litter disposal. From there on we started working on ‘Waste to Energy’ and named our venture as ‘Trash to Treasure’. She faced a lot of hurdles having chosen a not so glamorous field of waste management. Becoming an entrepreneur and that too a young woman posed additional challenges. Lack of awareness and regulatory enforcements in the area of waste management are other issues we faced. However, with PM's validation of our work, hopefully this will change now. (Ed: see a 25-seconds clip of the plant below)

In addition to Bowenpally Vegetable Mandi, what other installations have you done in the country? 

It has been seven years now on product development. We have a fully baked turn-key waste-to-biogas plant solution for food waste/kitchen waste/vegetable waste. We have done more than 20 installations all over India successfully. We also have an R&D laboratory and are preparing for other areas of waste management.

People at your age think of retirement. How did you deal with this transition from electrical contracts to waste management?

This venture became my ‘second innings’. More importantly, I was able to retain all my staff and have successfully trained them in fabrication and operation of biogas plants. It’s very satisfying to provide employment to so many people and to provide them with new skill set as well. 

 Environment is everybody's responsibility. But most people don't think so. How did you overcome this mind set?

This mindset of people started to change from 2014 onwards when Mr. Modi started the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan as a national mission. It’s still a long way to go, to build more awareness, and for people to really ‘own’ their waste and not think that waste is someone else’s issue. However this is a global problem and world over the number of biogas plants are not as high as they should be. Technology is not an issue but problems around waste segregation, waste mafia exist. We are encouraging more transparency in the system and providing proven technology solutions. Our solution ensures that segregated waste can be treated onsite in a decentralized manner so that it never gets mixed up with dry waste and does not end up in our landfills. We are slowly seeing this mindset change. Hopefully next few years will see faster adoption and implementation of such solutions. 

One criticism against such waste treatment plants is that they consume lot of water. What do you say?

We recycle the slurry in our plant. It reduces overall consumption of fresh water significantly. Of course the slurry as our byproduct is an excellent manure for plants and trees. (Ed: See the video below)

Going ahead what are your plans for future?

The future will see the use of biogas as compressed fuel (CBG) for vehicles as well as piped gas (Bio PNG). We are gearing up towards this end. We will also be offering turn-key biogas plants for industrial wastes such as poultry litter, slaughter house waste and other agricultural wastes like palm oil bye-products, bamboo, elephant grass etc. All these have a high potential to convert into clean fuel. 

Postscript: We are delighted to share another recent video clip हरी भरी बिजली meaning 'Green Electricity' posted on YouTube on 20th June 2022. 

Once again, our congratulations to Shruti Ahuja and her team for constantly innovating newer ways to preserve the environment.

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We thanked the entrepreneurs. Isn't their journey so inspiring? Indeed it is. But it raises few questions?

Why do engineers shy away from working as engineers? Most become managers, teachers, bankers, software programmers, analysts and so on. We need more engineers like Ahuja who have successfully applied their engineering knowledge and skills to solve larger problems of the society like waste management.

Why don't engineering students do projects and internships in organisations like AES where they can learn application of knowledge. Germany and Japan have 100 times more apprentices/interns every year compared with India. Food for thought for all.

Well, let us return to our theme of saving the environment. Environment and its preservation is the responsibility of all of us. Let us do our bit to keep the environment clean and green. We can help in many ways like generating awareness or cleaning the lakes etc. We are sharing below links to some of our earlier stories concerning the environment.

A Squirrel Comes Home

Do Demoiselle Cranes Have a Roll Call?

Can Tree Bark act as Rat Poison?

Shrinking Urban Lakes and Impending Disaster

Management Lessons from a Forest

Bodo Village- Living with Nature

Even Plants Avoid Plastics

Please do remember that environment is an asset which we have borrowed from our children. We have no right to degrade it in any way. Think about it.

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Stay connected and stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ 3rd Feb 2021

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