Frugal Tech: Indian Start-Ups Turning Tradition Into Low-Cost Innovation

By [pari rathore] | May 28, 2025

Morbi, Gujarat – For Mansukh Prajapati, innovation was born not in a laboratory but in the dusty streets of his hometown, shaped by clay and hardship.

As a child in Morbi, a town known for its ceramic and pottery industries, Prajapati would rise before dawn. His mornings began with a six-mile trek to gather clay for his family’s traditional pottery business. His father’s potter’s wheel was both the heartbeat of their home and a symbol of the family’s struggle.

"Nobody wanted their daughter married into a potter’s family," he recalls. "They feared she would be burdened with endless labour."

Despite the stigma and limited income, Prajapati would later transform his humble roots into a beacon of frugal innovation—a growing movement in India’s start-up ecosystem focused on low-cost, high-impact technology.

Clay, Craft, and Creativity

Prajapati’s most celebrated invention is the Mitticool refrigerator—a clay fridge that runs without electricity. Designed for rural households with limited power access, it uses natural evaporation to keep food fresh. Affordable and environmentally friendly, the refrigerator earned him global recognition, including from the UN and World Economic Forum.

His innovation sparked a broader trend in India’s start-up landscape: tech that’s cheap, sustainable, and tailored to rural needs.

The Rise of Frugal Tech in India

Across India, a new generation of entrepreneurs is prioritizing affordability over luxury, designing products for the "next billion users"—people in remote or low-income communities underserved by conventional technology.

Examples include:

Low-cost sanitary pads made with locally available materials.

Solar-powered lamps and cookers for villages without reliable electricity.

Mini cold storage units for small-scale farmers.

This model of “jugaad” innovation—using limited resources creatively—is gaining traction not just in India but across emerging markets in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

From Stigma to Start-Up Success

For Prajapati, the journey from a socially marginalized potter to a celebrated innovator reflects the deeper cultural shift underway in India: where traditional skills and rural knowledge are being repurposed for modern challenges.

"We used to be ashamed of our identity," he says. "Now I feel proud that clay, something we were born into, could change lives."