SPI Uplifts Lives of 2,412 Commercial and Micro-entrepreneurs in Rural India  

The SPI MED program has helped transform the lives of 2412 commercial and micro-entrepreneurs in rural India micro-entrepreneurs

In a bid to create socio-economic opportunities for rural and micro-entrepreneurs, Smart Power India (SPI)’s Micro-Enterprise Development Program (MED) in India has helped rural communities harness electricity for productive uses. This has thereby boosted greater demand for power and helping village-level entrepreneurs expand their existing businesses or develop new businesses. The MED program has helped transform the lives of 2412 commercial and micro-entrepreneurs in rural India micro-entrepreneurs in the states of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand as of April 2021.

SPI along with its partner Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) has aided in access to reliable electricity across multiple irrigation units, oil expellers, rice hullers, water treatment units in these regions. This has resulted in not just alleviating poverty but also in bringing socio-economic parity in these communities.

Talking about the MED program, Jaideep Mukherjee, CEO at SPI said,“ While there has been tremendous progress made in rural electrification with respect to household electrification, challenges remain in even ensuring basic connections to rural businesses and microenterprises. It is with this overarching objective, Smart Power India (SPI) started the MED program with a vision to drive the socio-economic progress of rural customers by ensuring access to reliable and quality electricity. Our partner mini-grid operators/ ESCOs have played a crucial role in this journey. Our efforts together  in understanding the energy needs of customers, offering reliable solutions, ensuring financial viability and building trusted relationships with the customers has resulted in effective implementation of this program within a short span of time.”

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The mini-grid sector has proved that reliability is key to unlocking latent demand and achieving the full economic potential of energy access in under-served regions. Only with access to reliable power are enterprises likely to employ relatively expensive and sophisticated appliances for productive purposes. When this happens, there is a triple-win of improved household incomes, increased enterprise productivity, and higher revenue for mini-grid operators.

Smart Power India has developed a set of services to support energy-based microenterprise development at the village level as part of the MED program. It identifies opportunities, technology partners, forges relevant partnerships, and organises training and capacity-building programs to enable energy access to poor areas and help new businesses take shape, and let the existing microenterprises to expand.