Kanika Pal

The Womennovator Kanika is a beacon of hope for many, as she always followed what her heart aspired. Since childhood, she wanted to do pottery. However, while doing it, she realized that it is extremely polluting. It was really difficult to sit & breathe while doing pottery. Finally, when she looked into the matter she got to know that the kilns used by potters today, actually date back to Indus Valley civilization – most of which is in present-day Pakistan. Unfortunately, no significant improvement in the running of these kilns has taken place since then. This made her adamant to start her own enterprise. SOCHE or Solutions for Clean and Healthy Environment is a non-profit foundation that she co-founded to amalgamate her two deep interests- environment and handicrafts. The potter’s project got christened as Project MaatiMilaap, and was envisioned to contribute to Sustainable Development Goals 13 – Climate Action, 12 – responsible production and consumption and 17 – Partnership for goals. She even spoke at TEDx Christ University regarding this work recently. She has been successful in lessening the pollution levels to 70% and is really safer for the women to work too. Improved thermal efficiency and uniform heating of the clay products as compared to traditional kilns resulting in less breakage and less fuel consumption (up to 20%) has also happened. A short stint in Sony Pictures CSR has helped her gather funds to take the potters project to the next phase. In this year, she aims to create 20 more pollution free kilns which will lead to healthy living. She also plans to replicate it not just in the national capital region, but Mumbai and Rajasthan in the next five years.