Imphal: A banner with the highlighted words ‘Local Job, Voice for Local, Save Forest, No to Deforestation’ and a pile of small brown coloured objects in bags attracted the DIPR team in one of the stall at the ongoing “Mai-Own, 2021” exhibition at Hapta Kangjeibung, Imphal.
DIPR spoke to the founder and CEO of Synergy, Loitongbam Bidhan Chandra who informed that the small brown coloured objects in bags are biomass briquettes which are biofuel substitute to coal and charcoal that comes from any kind of burnt waste products except plastic.
Synergy is based on the concept ‘Waste for somebody is a treasure for me’. All the biomass briquettes in bags are made from anything that burns except plastic products. Factory of Synergy, Kakching Kuraopokpi Industrial Estate supplies biomass briquettes to brick farms and even clean biomass stoves to many families of the state.
He said Manipur consumes more than 50 lakhs worth of biomass fuel every day only in distilling rice wine and more for various purposes that include domestic cooking. Out of this, 25 lakhs is wasted on inefficient combustion and smoke. It gives huge impact on health, deforestation and becomes a major reason behind the climate change as well as to the economy of our tiny state, he continued.
He further informed that there is a need to search for solutions to address these issues coupled with technology to bring in social impact and commercial viability both. Seeing and experiencing the plight (i.e., lack of daily basic amenities ) of people especially from a far distance from Imphal, the capital city and remote areas of the state inspired him to find out the solution. ‘Synergy’ was initiated in 2016 and provides clean cooking cook-stoves to more than 2000 households per year.
The biomass briquettes are sold in hostels and hospitals. Currently, 50 plus waste material including rice husk, sawdust, forest waste, agro waste are used for making and manufacturing briquettes. Different steps are used in converting the waste materials to wealth like collection, consumption, distribution and production. At present, Synergy is giving employment to 100 employees particularly to women folks, uneducated and unemployed youths, daily wage earners from urban as well as rural areas and small scale entrepreneurs.
Loitongbam Bidhan Chandra informs DIPR that he was selected in the top 6 (six) of the Government’s Start-Up Scheme (phase I) and got Rs 30 lakhs as financial support. It has helped a lot in expanding Synergy. In spite of many hurdles in his venture, the talented entrepreneur, a graduate in Information Technology, who wants to maintain a low profile, said that he got a job at the very young age of 21 and got global exposure as he worked in different countries like Dubai, Germany, USA. He said his future target is to expand Synergy Engineering and Environmental Solution to all the regions of the north-eastern states. Synergy, the brainchild of Bidhan Chandra is targeting to see a sustainably developed region and wants to provide jobs to more than 1500 people and create energy from treating 40 tonnes of waste every day.
