chennai it came as a blessing to bharath reddy when he realised that he could save 700 on fuel if he installed a biogas plant on his field in tana palli village of andhra pradesh introduced to him by sustainearth a company that is developing lowcost biogas plants called gau gas for rural households reddy says the improved technology helps him get clean fuel at almost no cost i just have to work for half an hour and i get fuel that lasts for a day says reddy explaining that these plants operate better than those installed by the government which worked only for three months like reddy many small farmers in ap find gau gas as a viable option compared to lpg cyclinders zeroing in on biogas to address farmer problems and developing a lowcost plant was an idea that was born from interactions between the founders of sustainearth and the mentors of villgro an organisation that guides funds and incubates early stage innovationbased forprofit social enterprises impacting the lives of the poor we are developing a biodigester that will help farmers convert cattle waste into biogas and bio fertilisers apart from getting cooking gas farmers will earn from the plant by selling biofertilisers to organic farmers in urban areas and cut down on expensive chemical fertilisers on their own field says sustainearth cofounder koushik yanamandram adding that the plant can be installed in a day akin to any other appliance unlike the government installed brickandmortar plants which take about 10 days to set up but improved technology means high cost making it unsuitable for poor farmers scaling down from 20000 to 12000 wasnt an easy task for young entrepreneurs at this stage the investment from villgro came handy as we didnt have to charge the farmer more says yanamandram adding that the association further got them a funding of 20 lakh from mahindra finance most innovations fail to reach the grassroot when new enterprises dont have enough funding guidance and exposure the role played by organisations like villgro become vital for helping such firms at different stages and ushering in social change if the poor have remained poor then what we have attempted in the past has not worked innovation becomes important as it can increase the scale of impact and social enterprise is crucial as it can be sustainable because it places the poor as customers of products and services that will have an impact on their lives aditi seshadri of villgro says explaining how the organisation has supported 109 innovators in areas like education health agriculture and energy with seed funding equity investment and networking from rural bpos that employ village youth and women to developing devices for diagnostics at primary health centres in rural maharashtra many innovative ideas have borne fruit after receiving direction interestingly the reach of these innovations usually go beyond country borders and may eventually receive funding from government bodies too one such case is the vocational training method developed by chennaibased