The 'Uber' of kabbadiwallahs is here

There comes a time, once a month – usually early Sunday mornings, when one hears the tinkling of a cycle bell followed by the bellow – "kabbadiwalla."

That magical call then sends the mother into hyperdrive and all the junk carefully collected is brought out from all corners of the house to be trashed.

This junk that includes newspapers, plastic bottles, glass bottles, oil cans and other miscellaneous scrap that households collect, is then carefully weighed (with the mother keeping a sharp eye on the scales) and unceremoniously dumped into a tarp bag and whisked away.

The money is carefully calculated, usually made more complicated with protestations and interjections from the raddiwalla who insists that he is overpaying for the junk he is buying. When the entire process – fraught with tension, emotions and a lot of accusations, is finally done with, usually nobody is happier at the end of it. The raddiwalla feels cheated, and so does the mother.

But now to change all that, some kabbadiwallas have gone digital in conjunction with 22-year-old Niraj Gupta, or more precisely his company. Gupta, who calls himself the "Uber" of waste management company Junkart, has collaborated with vendors across the city, which facilitates pickups at a time of the person's convenience.

"We sensed that there was a lot of distrust against kabadiwallas, so we are also training them in customer care management, and in ethical practices," Gupta said.

Asked as to how he got into the business Gupta said. "My grandfather was in this business many decades ago. Though, he profited immensely from collecting scrap, he did not get the respect he felt he deserved."

"That's one of the reasons why I started this business, I wanted to engage with the kabadiwallas and help them get the respect they deserve. And, of course, I wanted to make pots of money as well," he added.

Gupta, a recent graduate from the Sri Ram College of Commerce, started this company along with three others – Prashant Dwivedi, Shailandra Singh and childhood friend Shivam Shah. All of them, impressed with his vision and motivation, left high paying jobs across various sectors to join this startup.

Delhi generates around 8,000-10,000 tonnes of waste daily of which 70-80 per cent is recyclable. All this then goes to the landfills where proper waste management is missing – as was obvious by the increase in air pollution a few weeks ago.

"I want to organise this unorganised sector. Though, I alone cannot make a difference, I need help," Gupta said.

In the past few years, many online kabadiwallas have mushroomed across the country. Though like any other startups, few flourish while the rest dimmed out.

"We started Junkart, with one vendor in one locality as our pilot project. Slowly, we built up our confidence and increased our strength to more than 400 vendors now. We are even planning to expand to Bengaluru very shortly," Gupta said.

According to Assocham, in India, the predicted value out of waste is expected to touch $1.5 billion by 2017. Our country produces almost 15 million tons of waste paper every year, of which only 26 per cent gets recycled. "The potential is thus great," Gupta said