India is trying to bring clean and renewable electricity to hundreds of millions of its citizens who live off the grid. Frontier Markets is helping to achieve this goal in the western state of Rajasthan by selling solar-powered products to hundreds of villages.
The company employs women to sell products such as lamps, stoves, and TVs that run on solar power through a programme called Solar Sahelis (Solar Friends). Each woman is in charge of selling products to hundreds of rural households.
"We learned that while the customer — the person paying for the product — was a man, the person using the product was a woman," Frontier Markets CEO Ajaita Shah said in an interview with CNN Business. "In fact, 70% of our users were women and that is when we realised that in order to properly serve the right households needs, women had to be at the centre of that value chain," she added.
Shah founded the company in 2011, with the goal of providing clean energy to millions of rural Indians while also giving women a source of employment and income.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prioritised rural electrification, announcing last year that 100% of the India’s villages now have access to power. But the government considers a village electrified if just 10% of its houses are on the grid, meaning over 200 million people still have no access to electricity.
The Modi government has also set targets to increase solar energy capacity, and it has succeeded in going from under 4 GW in 2015 to nearly 30 GW, which is approximately 8% of India's total energy capability. The government wants to increase that to 100 GW by 2022.
The 3000 women that Shah employs have helped to provide energy to more than 500 000 village houses in Rajasthan, she said. The women communicate the benefits of clean energy to rural households, but also help the company understand the kind of innovations that those households need most, she added.
Another issue that the company is helping to solve is getting more women into work. Only 22% of India's workforce is female, according to the latest data from the World Bank – one of the lowest rates in the world. India lags behind countries such as Sudan, El Salvador and Afghanistan.
"As India starts growing and moving and changing and evolving, especially with the digital revolution, women are still being left behind," Shah said. "It's really important for us to continuously invest in our women's skills and their education to be able to catch up."
The business model appears to be working. The company’s annual revenue has gone from around US$300 000 in 2015 to nearly US$2.7 million this year, and the company has partnered with big global names like Philips and Unilever.
"We are very proud of how we've been able to succeed with Frontier Markets," Shah said. "It's a part of my mission to make sure we understand that investing in women is not just an impact story but smart business and the key to end poverty."