BASIX - Indian Grameen Services

Indian Grameen Services is registered as a not-for-profit company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, established in 1987 by Vijay Mahajan, Deep Joshi and Sankar Datta. IGS is engaged in livelihood promotion through capacity building and development of business services that engage the poor. In Indore, Bhopal and other 12 town and , IGS has reached over 2,200 of the city’s most downtrodden members: waste pickers who earn less than 80-90 Rs a day collecting recyclable scrap for a living. IGS has done so through creation of decentralized scrap purchasing points within waste picker slums, to ensure a fair price and protect waste pickers against exploitative dealings of other scrap dealer (kabadiwallas). This scrap is then processed into recyclable briquettes (gatta) for sale to manufacturing units. IGS has also established size micro-composting sites to process organic waste into compost, the proceeds of which are invested back into the company for provision of waste picker services.