News

Solar-powered ATMs benefit rural india

April 23, 2012

Indian startup Vortex Engineering has come up with a solution that saves villagers in rural India from having to travel for hours to the nearest bank branch and lose a day's work, said an article at e360.yale.edu.

The ATMs feature a design that demands 90 percent less power than typical cash machines, allowing the operator to run them "off the grid" with solar power. The "Gramateller" ("gram" is Hindi for "village") is being used by banks to bring ATM convenience to small towns that lie about 20–40 miles from the nearest bank branch.

Currently, 450 Gramatellers are in use in villages. Vortex marketing manager, Sabarinath Nair, told e360 that the solar fleet would expand to 10,000 over the next two years. He said this would reduce the cost of banking in rural areas, and allow villagers to withdraw smaller sums of money at a time, eliminating the dangers of carrying a large amount of cash.

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