Adapted from a forthcoming book by Prof. Anil Gupta titled Inclusive and Frugal Innovation: Creating Value for People, Organisations, and Society by Springer Nature, 2026. His first book was Grassroots Innovation: Minds On The Margin Are Not Marginal Minds, published by Penguin in 2016.
Anil Kumar Gupta is a renowned Indian scholar and expert in grassroots innovations, formerly a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) for 36 years until 2017. He is the founder of the Honey Bee Network, National Innovation Foundation (NIF), and SRISTI. Gupta, awarded the Padma Shri in 2004, is known for promoting inclusive, affordable, and sustainable innovations.
Frugal innovation is often mistaken for just being “cheap.” However, true frugality must also account for the environmental cost. For example, while one-rupee shampoo sachets are affordable for consumers, the ecological cost of collecting millions of plastic scraps from thousands of villages and urban areas is massive. Frugality for consumers and manufacturers is not enough. Frugality is needed for mother earth too.
It is not true that frugal innovations emerge in ‘resource’ constrained environments. Grassroots frugal innovations often emerge in ‘materially’ constrained environments but not in knowledge constrained environments. Is Knowledge not a resource? Economically poor people are not necessarily poor in knowledge.
Further, Frugality isn’t desirable just for “material resource-constrained” environments; it is a mindset applicable to material-rich organizations like ISRO and multinational corporations (MNCs) like GE alike.
Given the increasing economic squeeze, frugality is something more societies are looking for in most endeavours. There are three challenges:
a) Circularity with frugality;
b) Regulatory support is often lacking or lagged, standards for such innovations, particularly when they are based on second hand parts (implementing circularity principles) takes a long time, if at all; and
c) Public policy for supporting such innovation, when these are DIY (Do IT Yourself) is extremely weak. The incentives for diffusing these are missing as against purchased input based innovations for which enough lubricants exist in the marketplace.
More from Less for More (MLM)
Borde and Mashelkar (2025) have very convincingly argued that MLM or frugal innovators often use not just less material or less expensive designs but also a different mindset to develop extremely affordable heuristics. Among the grassroots innovations from around the world, Honey Bee Network and its affiliated institutions, GIAN and SRISTI and earlier NIF, have shown that any problem can be tackled at its costlier end or frugal end.
Grassroots innovators as also other frugal problem solvers often start from the essential problem to be solved. Some of them remain stuck at version one or two and some keep on making improvements in different versions.
Mansukh bhai Jagani, whose patent was filed by GIAN in 1998 in USA (granted in 2003) developed ‘Santi or Sanedo” – a motorcycle plough which was modified in several ways, such as adjustable width of the multipurpose tool bar attached to it, transition from motor cycle to chassis, addition of back gear to reduce turning radius and several other features.
Despite having got a patent, he did not enforce it against fellow mechanics because demand was far more than he could have ever met from his own workshop. Frugal innovations when accompanied by a frugal business model, make a much more social impact.
Health Solutions: The Case of Anaemia
At times, “learned helplessness” can stifle imagination, leading societies to accept unsolved problems like rampant anemia.
Actionable DIY Ideas
- Iron Leaching: Cooking in traditional cast-iron vessels or using a 125g cast-iron “fish” or “leaf” in curries can leach essential iron into food
- The Vitamin C Catalyst: Adding acids like lemon or tomato juice to iron-rich meals significantly increases iron absorption
- Sprouting Pulses: Sprouting grains and pulses reduce phytic acid (which blocks iron) and increases Vitamin C and digestibility
- Avoid Non-Stick: Modern non-stick ladles prevent the natural leaching of iron that occurred with older cooking methods.
From Microfinance to Microventure
A significant hurdle for young frugal grassroots innovators is the lack of “very early stage” funding. While microfinance exists for established markets, it doesn’t support unproven, novel ideas.
Micro-Venture Innovation Finance (MVIF)
A shift toward funding small-scale testing (as little as Rs.50,000 to Rs. 5 lacs) is needed for creative ideas that don’t have a market yet.
Horizontal Markets
Currently, members of self-help groups rarely buy from one another. Developing horizontal markets allows women’s groups and other small entrepreneurs to purchase products made by other local groups, creating a self-sustaining regional economy .
The Power of Collaboration
Innovation does not happen in a vacuum. The greatest challenge is creating a collaborative platform where youth can build on each other’s ideas regardless of language or culture. This “Grassroots to Global” (g2G) framework encourages reciprocal and responsible innovation. It implies that many grassroots innovations can and have indeed provided universal solutions. Whether these solutions diffuse widely may depend upon the public policy and private sector interest in replicating these as DIY solutions or non-exclusive licenses.
