Resham Sutra – Machines for Happiness

Viable and sustainable rural job options are needed to ensure a more equitable growth and reducing our environmental impact. Rural production technology development has not kept pace with other economic sectors. Along with this lack of business and infrastructure support in villages this has resulted in higher dissatisfaction in villages and increased migration to cities.

We offer highly productive, Solar powered and IoT enabled machines for rural producers. These especially help rural women to earn comfortably and sustainably right from their home. We develop integrated farm to retail business model in to which these machines plug in. This creates a sustainable and equitable livelihood option for better future of the villages.

Our solutions have touched 12,000+ lives across hundreds of Indian villages. It can scale up to change millions of lives worldwide. We include rural people of varied demographics and skill-sets. We create jobs from farming to manufacturing to sales.  

There’s a growing need of sustainable jobs in villages, as needs and aspirations are growing and migrant workers are facing ever increasing problems. However, there are very limited viable job options in the villages. This is particularly true in the remoter and poorer parts of the developing world. A prime reason for this is that production technology for rural jobs has not improved over decades.

There are more than eight million rural households engaged in silk textile  production in India. Most of them use very primitive tools and methods; almost all of them suffer from problems of poor quality, high physical stress and low income. Many of these families earn less than $35 per month.

Many rural women are still using arduous techniques like ‘reeling of silk yarn on their thighs’. These are not just physically taxing, but often lead to mental stress and social trauma.

There are over fifteen million unemployed or underemployed rural women in India alone. Large numbers of returning migrant-workers are looking for suitable work options in the villages. Numbers in other LDC countries are likely to be even larger.

Scalable solutions can solve livelihood problems for millions of rural people.

Our solution is Solar Powered and IoT enabled machines for rural textile production. We have innovated extremely compact machines with high productivity. The machines use latest innovations from fields of robotics and power electronics along with textile technology. The machines are designed to be safe and convenient for the rural women users. 

Our major machines are – 
Unnati – world’s first compact, high speed, solar powered silk yarn production machine.
Buniyaad – compact yarn producer replaces thigh reeling of silk.
Silky spin – solar and pedal operated spinning machine.
Sun Kargha -  Solar powered high efficiency looms.

We support these with innovations in business processes and marketing. Our integrated rural Farm to Retail value-chains support rural producers with easy access to raw material, market and capital along with environment friendly farming and production technologies. This builds a sustainable and equitable growth model for all round development of villages.

Our rural productive machines are life changing, as they allow the women to work while taking care of their household duties. Scaling of this solution will create millions of new jobs. The section of society untouched by the technology revolution will finally get connected to it.

Rural textile production is a labor intensive industry providing employment to around 8 million people, most of whom are small and marginal workers. Producing each Kg of silk in villages employs 11 people, out of which typically 6 are women. India is the world’s largest consumer of silk; it imports about 30% of its requirements. Substituting these imports with rural production can create over a million new jobs.

Despite the potential, there has been slow progress in the rural textile industry. In fact it has seen negative growth in many areas. Growth in productivity and income has lagged the progress made in other industries. A major reason for this is dependence on archaic production technology in the cottage industries. The quality of product is typically poor and inconsistent. There are various causes contributing to this including inconsistent process, poor input quality and lack of appropriate production technology.

• The traditional methods imply that women use palm and thigh to produce yarn, which are unhygienic practices leading to occupational health hazards.
• The quality of produce often does not meet the demands of the market.
• Significant part of the income is retained by the intermediaries, leaving little for sustenance of the producers.

These factors have led to swift switch by the younger generation to alternative livelihoods or migration. Unless better production technology is made available to the producers the sector will continue to decline and some of the arts may be confined to extinction.

The industry’s problems have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to choking of the supply-chain and severe demand supply gaps at all stages.

Resham Sutra is an innovative enterprise, working with the objective of improving lives of rural textile producers. It is specially focused on the segments of rural silk producers and handloom weavers. It’s work includes development of modern and more productive production equipment and processes; business solutions and financial linkages for the rural producers. Resham Sutra has introduced ten different types of machines that improve productivity and income for rural producers substantially.

Reshamsutra has impacted more than 12,000 beneficiaries directly and over 40,000 beneficiaries indirectly so far. Most of its work is focused on the most backward forested parts of India. A majority of its beneficiaries are tribal women with extremely low family income.

Some of the business innovations pioneered by Resham Sutra include –

• Introducing IoT enabled machines
• Setting up Rural Experience Centers
• Developing rural common facility centers
• Setting up rural raw material banks
• Developing online plus offline hybrid market places.

Rural communities have thrived with minimum carbon footprint through a symbiotic relationship with nature and have preserved ancient crafts using local resources. However, arrival of large industrial ‘development’ and increased needs and aspirations have disturbed this fine balance.

Our project

• uses renewable power and high efficiency products
• uses techniques like watershed development, mud block construction and inter-cropping to preserve and rejuvenating ecosystems.
• uses IoT to collect accurate data and improves financial inclusion
• works with micro financing agencies for innovative financial models.
• sustains ancients crafts and prevents migration
• is aligned to SDGs 1, 5, 7 and 8 of UN 

Our technology solutions have been implemented in more than hundred communities across fourteen states of India. The solutions have been well proven and accepted by the communities, as they have seen clear benefits.

We have now started developing integrated value-chain projects that will further improve viability and sustainability of the rural producers, while growing their income.

In the next stage we expect to scale up the solutions to hundreds of thousands of users.

Our Solutions uses multiple innovations across Production Technology, Services, Business Processes and Marketing to ensure better success for rural users.

Production Technology & Services - 10 Machinery innovations, 2 patents filed.
Machines - Unnati – compact solar powered silk yarn production machine, Buniyaad – simple machine to replace thigh reeling of yarn, Silky spin – solar and pedal operated spinning machine, Sun Kargha -  Solar powered high efficiency looms, Dyna Charkha - flexible yarn re-winding machine, Handy MRTM - Mini yarn twisting machine, Recycling process to recycle all waste produced in the production cycle.

IoT enabled PayG and Feedback mechanism - this helps to connect rural users with innovative financing mechanism and also improves service delivery.
Service innovations - we use network of trained rural youth to provide quick and efficient doorstep service to even the remotest customers.
More innovations are in pipeline.

Business Process -

Integrated Farm to Retail value chains to connect producers at every step and ensure smooth flow of material and money.
The farmers in the community are being trained to use eco-friendly methods like rain water conservation, inter-cropping and use of local material for construction. 
We are also developing Raw Material banks in the communities.
We have setup Rural Experience Center to train the local women and do hand-holding in the initial period.

Marketing -
We are establishing certification system that will certify product Quality, Organic nature, Origin and Traceability. 
Hybrid Online + Offline marketplace

We currently serve 12,000 people directly, this leads to indirect benefits to 40,000 people.

In one year we will directly serve 18,000 people and indirect benefit will accrue to 60,000 people.

1) Number of beneficiaries reached

2) Number of new jobs created

3) Number new jobs created for women

4) Change in family income

5) Change in lifestyle parameters 

20 Full time staff

42 Part time staff

80 contractors

Our team has deep experience in the industry along with wide networks all over the world.

Our leadership team - 

Mr. Kunal Vaid (B.Engg., MBA) CEO Resham Sutra – he has been instrumental in developing, manufacturing and propagating of devices including Solar Powered Silk reeling and spinning machines, higher productivity weaving looms and other machines. He has filed two patents for machines. He has also been instrumental in improving business operations of rural producer groups. His expertise in matching modern technologies to rural industries has resulted in high improvements in productivity and quality and has also expanded the reach of rural industries by bringing in new talents to these industries. Access to these technologies and experiences are key differentiator for Resham Sutra.

Mr. Ratan Vaid (BSc (Hons)) - Founder of Needlepointe Textile Products Pvt. Ltd., engaged in the business of manufacture and international marketing of Home Textiles and apparels for over thirty five years. He has worked with many large international customers like Target, Dillards (USA), Next UK and Galleries Lafayette (France) etc., as well as niche designers and retailers. Prior to founding Needlepointe, he has worked in rural marketing of agri seeds and inputs at the the state level in Bihar, India. His marketing and production experience is invaluable for Resham Sutra to promote rural artisans’ products and find a higher value market for them.

Our company stands for equal opportunity for people of all race, sex and background. We are working with 'Value for Women', a consulatncy that helps organizations become more inclusive.

Over 95% of our customers are women, this further pushes us to be more women friendly in all aspects of work.

The most interesting aspects of Solve for us are - 

a) Access to Mentorship and coaching - as we try to scale up the business model, we expect fresh challenges, it'll be critical to have a strong global team to address these.

b) Access to networks, particularly for technology development - we see technology as our key differentiator. Constant access to better technology will be critical for us at all times.

c) Access to funding opportunities

We'll like to partner with MIT alumni and faculty founded organizations working in related fields, like non textile use of yarns. 

We'll also like to partner with global brands and retailers with a social drive.

Our solutions can be ported to many geographies including many war ravaged areas.

Textile production is universal across Asia, Africa and other parts of the world. The situation in LDC countries is not very different from that in India.

We will develop integrated livelihood hubs for refugees in specific geographies that will benefit them.

Our technologies are specifically focused on improving lives of the poorest women in the communities.

Over 95% of all our customers are women. 

Many of our customers are first time income earners.

Their lives are completely transformed with the use of our machines.

We are also working on developing business models specifically suitable for rural women to help them sustain the work and grow to be job creators for other women in the community. 

We are working with communities with practically zero access to education. Post joining hands with us this is the first area that changes.

We are also bringing digital literacy for these people through use of digital training modules and mobile app linking with the machines.

We will use the prize money to further these aspects of our work. As we are working with completely untouched areas, the impact shows up immediately and glaringly.