Pune, February 24: The availability of toilets in India is still a big issue. One if the reasons for it is that toilets are still not affordable for the masses living in rural areas. Many of them prefer going out for relieving themselves and saving the money they can use for building toilets for other important necessities. The Central Government has also been trying to make India Open Defecation Free (ODF). A Pune man, Ramdas Mane, has been contributing to it in a unique way by building toilets out of thermocol.

Ramdas Mane's company makes toilets out of thermocol with cement coating, in two hours. "We also give these as wedding gift to girls who don't have the capacity to build toilets, and have given it to 25 girls till now," Mane told ANI. His toilets are supplied all over the country he has supplied over 22,000 toilets all over the country.

The business of building toilets is run on no loss, no profit basis, and Mane has even been awarded various awards by different organisations and governments for his innovation, including the India CSR's with Sanitation leadership award 2016.

In 2007, he also made it to the Limca Book of records. Mane has also received awards in foreign countries like Australia and Uruguay. His company, 'Mane group of Companies' was started in 1993, to essentially builds thermocol machines.

Mane said that he supplies these machines in about 45 countries and that about 80 percent of the thermocol in India is made up by his machines. Mane has also been given a patent for the thermocol recycling machine, he said.

Ramdas Mane belongs from a poor family in Satara district.

It is not that everything has been easy for Ramdas Mane. He worked hard and did part-time jobs to complete his education. He even slept on the footpath for months while completing education and was working on night shift at a canteen of a bus stand when was in college. Today, Mane says his company's annual turnover is about Rs 40 crores with 70 employees working there. Most of the countries buy his thermocol machine as it is cheaper as compared to an international market.

Ramdas Mane is a shining example of entrepreneurship meeting social consciousness. His rags to riches story and his unrelenting efforts toward making the society get rid of lack of toilets is commendable. (With Agency Inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 24, 2018 11:38 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).