Musturappa, the stove maker
A 2 vessel clay stove in use
Project Financial Details
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwRdPi0mYDcKQhn2X_GzaPw
Project Details
Musturappa(age - around 40) and Nagendrama(age - around 30) live in Donehalli village which is on the road connecting Challakere town and Davengere city. Donehalli is around 20 km from Nayakanahatti. Musturappa and his wife (the couple) come from the potter community with a family history of doing clay items for over 400 years.
Supply side issues: The couple does clay pots and various types of simple mud stoves, including three stone stoves, single and two vessel chulla stoves for households. In the exisiting supply chain, traders come from the larger towns of Chitradurga and Davengere and purchase stoves in wholesale and sell it in the large cities. The couple currently works for 20 days in a month and stop work during the rains as they are not able to burn the clay stoves due to the wet conditions. They augment their income by running a petty shop near the bus stand at Donehalli. They do not have a bank account. Simple investments such as an overhead covering where they burn the clay stoves and additional working capital could help them to increase their production.
Demand side issues: Informal surveys around villages about the stoves reveal that people are interested in installing the stoves, but there is no enterprise existing to do this. The main attraction to the villagers is the cost of the stove. The cost price of a single vessel stove is around Rs. 120 and is sold in the cities for around Rs. 180. The cost price of a two-vessel stove is around Rs. 180 and sold in the cities at around Rs. 300. Even at these prices there is demand for the stoves.
The project is about creating an enterprise, which will be able to deliver stoves to the surrounding villages at a price less by at least 30% of the existing price being sold in the cities by intervening both in the supply side and demand side.On the supply side, make investments to increase their production. On the demand side, provide transportation infrastructure to make the stoves available in the villages and provide product credit to the villagers to buy the stove.
Project Size Details
On the supply side, investment in a shed where the stoves are burnt, around Rs. 5000. Working capital support of another Rs. 10,000. This should be enough to increase production from the current 500 stoves a year to 1000 stoves a year. This intervention can come from the local bank.
On the demand side, investment is required in a transportation vehicle. The vehicle will used only as and when required to transport the stoves to the villages. So, this can be made available on hire. The poor customers might require credit support such that they pay for the price of the stove in about 3 months. On an average around 50 stoves to 75 stoves can be sold in a month. The working capital support on the selling side will be around Rs. 16000 in the first 3 months.
The first step in doing this project is on the supply. Build an enterprise which can do the selling of the stoves. Once this runs viably, make investments in the supply side to increase production. To understand the demand side issues, this project will be run for 3 months and the returns after 3 months will be observed.
Project Impact Details
The impact of this project will be significant. At an investment size of only Rs. 227 per stove, we will be touching one household and the requirement of this stove is universal. In total in three months time we should be selling this stove to around 180 households.
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