Innovations that may change rural life

HYDERABAD: NECESSITY is the mother of invention, they say. And one such need made Mansukhbhai Patel, a farmer from village Nan Ubhada in Ahmedabad district in Gujarat developed a cotton stripper machine which he has named ‘Chetak’. The machine bagged him the National Innovation Foundation Award (2002) and a National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) Award (2004).

Displaying his work at the Pride of India Expo at the ISC-06, Patel is more than delighted for the support extended to him for the innovation under the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), TIFAC and DST. “I could not study beyond Std IX and had to take up farming. It was a hell of a job picking the cotton bolls and cleaning them. Hence I thought of developing a machine to do the job for me”, Patel told ‘The Hitavada’. Initially, he developed a prototype which was tested and later he fabricated 11 machines and sold them to farmers. But due to some mechanical fault they did not work well in fields and he suffered a loss of Rs 18 to 20 lakh. But this did not dishearten him and he took back the machines, rectified the defect and replaced them for his first customers. Later, he manufactured another 90 machines, all of which are sold. The machine has a capacity to handle two tonne of small staple cotton per hour (suited for V 797 or Kalyan variety grown in Gujarat) and does the job of 1,500 persons. “I was told about TePP by the Honeybee Network and Shrusti NGOs and that changed my life”, Patel said. For Patel need led to an innovation but for Balaji Sowmyanarayanan, a Masters in Computer Sciences, frustration to do anything creative that helps common people paved a path for an innovation. Balaji told ‘The Hitavada’ that he, after his education, went to USA but came back unsatisfied doing free lance software projects for even companies like Infosys. Although he continues to do some free lance work still for his livelihood, he is more into research now. He has developed a ‘electronic tagging’ for book like objects using the silk fabric or zari which conducts electricity. He has developed what is called as ‘Fabric Track’ which makes handling of objects easy. He has demonstrated the technology to TIFAC and asked for more funding. Similarly, Dr A Jagdeesh, Head, R&D, RM K Engineering College, Tamil Nadu has obtained six patents on activated methionine lysine, feed developed from eggs but good for even heart patients and a slimmer diet. In yet another example of rural technology, the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), Durgapur, has also developed a cost-effective 10 HP tractor -Vanraj to cater to the needs of the farmers with small land holdings.