Improving India’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Value Chain
Industry-leading Banka Bio, founded in 2012, impacts India’s sanitation life cycle every day. It provides innovative and environmentally-friendly water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure and services that improve health outcomes, dignity, and wellbeing for people in underserved communities across the country.
Miller Center first met co-founders Sanjay Banka and Namita Banka during our ten-month 2015 accelerator to train and mentor entrepreneurs seeking to scale their businesses. At that time, Banko Bio had been operating for three years and had installed toilets in more than 3,000 public and private facilities. But, with half of India’s population lacking access to toilet facilities, the company wanted to expand their impact. Following the program, Sanjay wrote, “Miller Center has added many dimensions to Banka Bio since our immersion in the accelerator. Every team member left a strong mark on us and stole our hearts.”
Startup to IPO
In 2018, Banka Bio became the first sanitation company to go through an Initial Public Offering on India’s National Stock Exchange SME platform, NSE Emerge. With the capital raised from its IPO, Banka Bio was able to tackle larger projects and continues to lead the fight in providing access to adequate, sustainable sanitation solutions in India. Today, the social enterprise has installed more than 10,000 bioloos in 22 states, recycled more than 1.5 million liters of water, and employed more than 1000 youth, primarily from low-income families.
Miller Center has been instrumental in our growth journey through the accelerator program with our mentors. Now the Center is providing opportunities for me to mentor younger enterprises which is very fulfilling.
– Sanjay Banka
Miller Center and Banka Bio
Sanjay is currently serving on the Miller Center Social Enterprise Advisory Council. And, Banka Bio is one of seven enterprises who recently worked with Santa Clara University students as part of our Fellowship program. The fellows were challenged to quantify and describe the range of social impact of bioloos for families in India’s Goa region, and to develop and implement an ongoing social impact reporting system. Their action research project was conducted via remote engagement due to the pandemic. Nonetheless, the program and Banka Bio are supporting rigorous, transformative undergraduate student learning. Through their research, the students are understanding that sanitation has to be socially acceptable and should be as economically viable as possible. As Sanjay summarizes, “Banka Bio is about sustainable sanitation — creating social, environmental, and economic impact through all our solutions to improve quality of life in our communities.”
