Solar-powered solution increases productivity, efficiency of pottery entrepreneurs

Spinning a solar-powered pottery wheel to make a clay product at Aloor village near Kundapura in Udupi district, Raghu Kulal says, “Now I can make up to 70 clay vessels a day when compared to 20 vessels a day earlier when I was using a manually-operated wheel.”

Spinning a solar-powered pottery wheel to make a clay product at Aloor village near Kundapura in Udupi district, Raghu Kulal says, “Now I can make up to 70 clay vessels a day when compared to 20 vessels a day earlier when I was using a manually-operated wheel.”

Not just the pottery wheel, the pug mill and the blunger at his ‘Guruvandana Pottery Products’ are also solar powered. The 3 kW capacity off-grid solar unit was set up by SELCO Solar Light Private Ltd. “Going in for a solar unit not only helped in increasing the output but also in making better quality products,” Mr. Kulal told The Hindu.

Under the conventional method, the pottery business entrepreneur said, two persons took a day just to prepare about seven baskets of clay for making the products. “Now, the solar-powered pug mill and blunger do so in half an hour.”

Mr. Kulal said that he went in for the solar unit nine years ago in 2015.

“As a teenager, disgusted with the traditional pottery making profession of my father, I went to Belagavi to work in a hotel. I left the village thinking that the there was no dignity in the profession. I had to return following the death of my father. After availing training in pottery making, marketing and installing a solar unit which changed the phase of production, I realised that there was no fault in the profession but the fault was with me,” Mr. Kulal said.

He said that The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) trained him with 14 others at Namma Bhoomi in Kundapura for six months.

Mr. Kulal told The Hindu that with the solar unit in place, he and his family members can work at any time. His two sons, who are graduates, and among whom one is pursuing post-graduation, stay with and assist him in continuing the entrepreneurship.