Woman entrepreneur working for a better India

Namita Banka, a BSc graduate from Delhi University with a PGD in jewellery designing and manufacturing, is a founder of Banka BioLoo Limited, a research-driven enterprise engaged in developing environment-friendly Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) infrastructure and services. Her business positively impacts the sanitation value chain from capture, emptying, transport, treatment, and wastewater reuse. From starting as a home-based business to building a corporate has been a long way.

Namita's path is not an obvious one. She started her first business in 1999, working as a diamond jewellery designer for 10 years in her home city of Surat. However, after her husband transferred to Hyderabad in 2008, Namita made a clean sweep. She enrolled in a course on social entrepreneurship and tried her hand at selling ink cartridges and green office supplies, tendering to Indian Railways, amongst others. Through her contacts there, she learned about one of their big problems, sanitation.

She worked as a licensing agent for two toilet manufacturers supplying the railways and developed her market knowledge. A shrewd businesswoman, she built up a reputation and bagged herself an annual toilet maintenance contract on certain East Coast Railways lines. It was her ticket to an even more promising business, which she incorporated in 2012.

Banka Bioloo uses bio-digester technology patented and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), a government agency, to dispose of human waste in a low-cost and low-maintenance manner. 'We use a set of bacteria that eat away human waste, leaving biogas that can be made into fuel and effluent water that can be reused for gardening,' says Namita.

Answering what made her start Banka Bioloo, Namitha says, "There is a huge issue in the sanitation industry; in the last 70 years, there has been no new technology innovation around managing faecal waste. So, while working with Indian railways on the new green toilet, I found my calling to start my venture and found my mission to change the poor water and sanitation situation by providing new technologies and innovative solutions to tackle them."

Namita is proud to be the only woman among the 20 businesses with whom DRDO shares its technology. 'I have taken a lot of initiative to popularise this technology. It's a huge opportunity for India and for us as a business,' she says.

In addition to its work with railways, Banka Bioloo is installing bio-toilets and bio-tanks in public schools and individual households in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, funded by an NGO. Namita advocates a general shift in thinking about human waste disposal. 'The government is spending millions of rupees on building public toilets that are not maintained because nobody wants to clean up other people's waste.' After the trains, Namita aims to 'bring a toilet to every household in India.'

Rapid fire

What inspired you to start an eco-friendly toilet?

Women who face issues like me of not finding a clean place to go when out of the home.

Being woman, what are the challenges you faced?

The biggest challenge was the taboo that toilets are a cultural issue and the job belongs to low-caste people.

What is the secret to your ability to run a successful business?

Commitment and let go attitude keeps me going. It's challenging to work with learned men all around, but we have to work because our mission is bigger than our minor issues.

What makes you enjoy your work daily?

Our people and our stakeholders love us a lot.

Why is it important to encourage entrepreneurship in India, especially among women?

Women can change anything if they get on to it. The question is how many do it. I encourage women to teach their girls to be enterprising from the early years. When I was in 12th grade (1992) my dad told his friend she would be a businesswoman someday. I did not believe him. But he had kept the seed in my mind. So, I hated to work for someone.

Few words for our women readers.

Be there, be here, be anywhere, and dream of putting your dream into action, and the magic will happen.