Indian waste management and recycling sector startups that attracted investors to pump in funds have not been able to scale up and spread their footprint widely because the industry has been stymied by unorganized players who do not pay taxes, and lack of uniform norms.
The startups are seeking effective quality norms for recycled products and homogeneous applicability of tax laws to plug leakages and impede unorganized players from reaping unfair gains through substandard products and tax evasions. About half dozen startups in the waste management and recycling sector were funded in the past eight months, including Hyderabad based Banyan Nation, Bengaluru based Saahas Waste Management and Delhi based Kabadi Express. The industry’s prospects remain bright.
Sreedhar Prasad, partner, e-commerce and startups, KPMG opined that all the dimensions that an investor looks at are available in this space. He also expressed that the need for such a startup exists, there is no large customer acquisition cost and they have all of India to scale up.
By Baishakhi Dutta