The Project aims to ensure livelihood sustainability for the pot makers in the glass industry cluster in Firozabad through techno-social intervention.Firozabad ? a small town in Uttar Pradesh, 40 km from Agra also Called glass capital of India. Here Pots are manufactured manually by local pot makers residing in and around the main town. These pots are used for melting of glass
There is a huge variation in life of each pot which ranges from
2 ? 40 days. The main reason is the inconsistency in the material used for making pots and in the manufacturing processInconsistent life of pots forcing local entrepreneurs to import prefabricated pots from Europe, thus endangering the livelihoods of local pot makers community Pot charging is an extremely harsh process and results in huge energy and production loss. Breakage and replacement of one pot wastes 400 Sm3 of natural gas

Project activities includes
? A diagnostic socio-economic survey of the pot makers active in the small scale glass cluster and the processes employed by them to make the pots
? Facilitation for the creation of six Self Help Groups (SHGs) of pot makers in various pockets of the cluster, which comprises of the town of Firozabad and its surrounding areas
? Facilitation for creation of a revolving fund through the small contributions made by SHG members, which would be used to meet part expenses for manufacture of demonstration pots and could be taken as loan by SHG members to meet contingency expenses
? Capacity building of the pot makers to maintain the revolving fund in a common bank account and to adopt better manufacturing practices for pot making
? Development of a scientific and consistent pot making methodology which can ensure enhanced reliability and life of the pots used in the glass melting pot furnace
? Manufacturing of twelve numbers of demonstration pots based on the developed methodology through local pot makers. Two demonstration pots would be manufactured by members of each of the six SHGs
? Testing and trials of the demonstration pots in two local industries
? A dissemination workshop and informal meetings with each SHG to make the local pot makers and the industrial users aware of the process, advantages and the results thereof. Since the initiative would result in monetary benefit both for the pot makers and the users, the objective would be to make the whole initiative market driven and hence self sustainable
? Techno-social facilitation and handholding support so as to take the initiative to a point from where the pot makers can continue with the improved process without any technical hiccups

Envisaged benefits
? Average pot life improved from 15 to 25 days
? Sustained livelihoods of local pot makers
? Improvement in working conditions of the people engaged in pot changing
? Natural gas savings to be tune of 3.1 million Sm3 / annum
? GHG reduction potential of 5400 tonnes / annum
Salient features of the Project
? Ensuring sustainability
? Adopting the demonstration route
? Ensuring buy-in from the local pot makers community
? Evolving an economically beneficial technology for all the stakeholders
? Dissemination and handholding support to the pot makers
? Developing sound institutional setup
? Developing network with all the stakeholders