Ahmedabad (Gujarat): Gujarat based start-up, Phycolinc Technologies, has been awarded HDFC Bank’s #Parivartan Grant. A ground-breaking start-up that employs advanced biotechnological tools to treat domestic and industrial waste-water, Phycolinc Technologies is one of the 25 handpicked social innovators from across the country to receive #Parivartan Grants from HDFC Bank. #Parivartan Grants are part of the bank’s CSR initiative aimed at helping start-ups working in the social sector to bring about sustainable change. In the first phase, the Bank has disbursed Rs 10 crore to start-ups and incubators in India.
In 2013, Sumeet Mohanty, a biochemical engineer from IIT Kharagpur, had taken a trip to a small village in Jharkhand. He was troubled to learn that three children from the village passed away after consuming water from a nearby lake that was contaminated by untreated sewage.
The incident inspired him to look for a low-cost solution that could be universally implemented and sparked his interest in clean-tech projects in the field of waste-water treatment. After working in the space for a few years, he teamed up with a group of biotechnologists to set up Phycolinc Technologies, a start-up that uses Algae to treat waste-water, including industrial effluents or domestic sewage to restore lakes and other water-bodies. The solution is organic, low-cost, and can be easily implemented.
On receiving the grant, Dr. Mayur Joshi, Microbiologist & co-founder, Phycolinc Technologies said, “Industries in Gujarat are struggling to meet environmental norms due to lack of accessibility to reliable and low-cost biological solutions. At Phycolinc, we work closely with polluting industries especially from the dye, chemical, and pharmaceutical segments to help them meet their environmental norms in a clean, green, biological and chemical-free way. We hope that in the next 5 years, we would be able to reach out to at least 500 such industries in Gujarat and Maharashtra, both MSME and large scale. This will help restore the deteriorating ecology of these states significantly.”
HDFC Bank’s grant has been utilized by Phycolinc Technologies in setting up a state-of-the-art environmental microbiology lab housed at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute in the city. The funds are also being utilised to expand the R&D setup, conducting a massive biodiversity exercise of polluted areas across Gujarat. This will enable Phycolinc to develop and customize solutions that could cater to more than 95 percent of the heavily polluting industries in Gujarat.
Parivartan Grants have been offered to start-ups from Jamshedpur, Kalahandi in Odisha, Kochi, Tiruvanathapuram, and Hyderabad in addition to Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune.
Through #Parivartan, which means change, it is HDFC Bank’s endeavor to bring about a sustainable change in society. The change includes encouraging the entrepreneurial eco-system in India to create long-term solutions to social issues, be it #environment, #WasteManagement, #health and well-being. Through #Parivartan, HDFC Bank has brought a difference in the lives of over 16 lakh people in the state.
“Parivartan Grants is our commitment to bring long-term positive change in the society we operate in. We are happy to announce that the start-ups identified for this grant are in line with one of our core values of the Bank – Sustainability. Our efforts are also areaffirmation to further align with the Sustainable Development Goals (#SDGs) by #UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) on the occasion of World Environment Day. Through our dynamic start-up fund, we will scale up on a consistent basis and invest in ideas that build value. This is the first phase, and we will continue to work with our partners to build a strong pipeline of social start-ups whom we can support,” said Ms. Nusrat Pathan, Head – Corporate Social Responsibility, HDFC Bank.
The Bank also provides tailored banking solutions to start-ups as part of its programme SmartUp for start-ups.
