A junk-computer revolution in Agra

Most of us tend to discard our computers every 2-3 years, to replace it with a faster, better machine, but while the computer industry is making good business by cashing in on this tendency of computer users, there is also a group of businessmen in Agra who have literally "struck gold" by salvaging these "obsolete" PCs.

The IT revolution in India that placed a computer in every middle-class household of the country has also served to transform the scrap salvage business of Agra and currently, at least 30 scrap dealers of this town have turned into traders of only obsolete computers and other electronic stuff, buying these computers straight from the internet by means of e-auctions and then hacking them down to their individual components.

The Chhipitola area of Agra houses this town's entire scrap market more than 500 scrap dealers that deal in anything from crude iron scrap to even broken down aircrafts and other military stuff that they buy in various auctions held around the country but lately, the businessmen of the area have hit this business-line of buying enormous quantities of computers and other high-end electronics stuff that has been rendered obsolete with time and breaking them down to their individual components, that are again dumped into the market, getting a second lease of life.

But a group of these traders have taken an innovative approach to this business lately, by treating the circuit boards chemically to extract precious metals like gold and silver from them. Started only a couple of years back, the number of scrap traders adapting this process is growing fast with almost 25-30 people trading in this computer and electronics scrap alone, earning profits in the tune of 30-35 crores yearly.

According to the market sources, the scrap dealers are more intent in buying old computers like 286, 386 etc. that have larger components and higher use of precious metals like gold and silver on the contact pins and the older the computer, the greater is the volume of gold or silver extracted from it, with an old 386 board yielding almost .5 to 1 gm of 24 ct. gold dust.

According to Pawan Kumar Jain, one of these scrap dealers, a lot of this stuff comes in the form of military scrap where sometimes even working computers are sold off as obsolete after a set time period.

If the computers were found to working, they were sold out at prices cheaper than the market but most of the time, the computers and the other electronic stuff was only salvaged for precious metals and only the components that were found to be working, were recycled.