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Honey bee publish details |
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Technological Innovation |
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From east to west: a secular thread of knowledge exchange |
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A bamboo windmill developed by Mehtar Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmed, Assam to irrigate a paddy field by plying a hand-pump was brought to Gujarat for pumping brine for making salt. The technological inertia in the form of counter poise was overcome through a generous knowledge exchange.If technology is like words, institutions are like grammar and culture is like a thesaurus. Apart from traditional knowledge and practices, there are a large of number of innovations and inventions that the Honey Bee network has been able to identify in the informal sector. The Honey Bee Newsletter has been publishing information about these on a regular basis. In this section, we have included a few innovations by common people from different parts of the country to provide a flavour of the creativity at the grassroots level. Most of these innovations are extremely frugal, affordable, socially and environmentally compatible and generally gender neutral. In some cases, the formal sector has added value in terms of design, functionality, durability, or flexibility. Majority of these innovations are available for licensing and/or social diffusion in collaboration with the innovator. The queries regarding entrepreneurship, investment or wider dissemination are most welcome. Flying high with hope, spirit and technology Cotton Stripper Machine Born in a farming family, Mansukhbhai would often help his father on the farm, especially with the farm machinery. As a child, Mansukhbhai had great interest in mechanical and electrical appliances and he would tinker with these whenever he had an opportunity. But he could only study till high school. Mansukhbhai saw a business opportunity in automating the process of separating lint from cotton bolls in local cotton varieties. He developed the first prototype of the Cotton Stripper Machine in 1994. More changes were introduced in the next three years. In 2001, he introduced dust collectors and fitted an automatic feeding system to the machine. He also provided wheel-brackets and castors to make the machine portable. Mansukhbhai’s stripping machine innovation was scouted by SRISTI. Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN - West), took up the task of value addition. Mansukhbhai was put in touch with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and other arms of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). With GIAN’s support, Mansukhbhai could secure Rs 5, 80,000 under the Technopreneur Promotion Program (TePP). GIAN-W also arranged for technical assistance from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. Mansukhbhai and his sons adopted the design thinking approach followed by Alexander, a German exchange student there.The cotton stripper saves costs involved in manual labour and eliminates drudgery especially for women and children who earlier used to perform this task. It can process 400 Kg cotton per hour and improves the quality of cotton. Vol 8(2) Apr-Jun 1997 Laxmi Asu making machine Before weaving various patterns on the loom, a hand winding process of yarn is required in the traditional ‘Tie & Dye’ Pochampalli silk saree tradition. This is a tedious and cumbersome process. The Pochampalli silk sari is an exquisite tradition of double ikat style of weaving with a wide variety of colours and intricate designs of geometrical patterns. It is distinctive because the design on the front of the sari is same as on the back. Before weaving these patterns on the loom, the yarn has to be hand wound in process known as Asu. This process involves moving the hands, over a space of one meter up and down around semi-circularly arranged pegs, 9000 times for one sari, demanding high concentration and accuracy. The yarn has to be hand wound on each peg four times before moving to the next peg. For each sari almost four to five hours of winding is required. The entire design process is totally dependent on the Asu process. Traditionally, ladies of the family performed this activity as it was done sitting under the shade or at home. Chintakindi Mallesham’s family has been pursuing the tradition of weaving Pochampalli saris for several generations. His mother, Laxmi, used to do the Asu for the saris woven by his father and him. In one day, she could only do the Asu for two saris. Making two saris required her to move her hand to and fro 18000 times. This caused tremendous pain in her shoulders and elbow joints. She would often tell her son that she could not do this anymore. She also did not want his would be wife to go through the same ordeal and suggested him to look for other avenues. For the untrained and less educated Mallesham, this was not easy. Also, doing Asu just for two saris per day was not enough to fetch sufficient income. This was not the case for his family alone. Women of his community looked after their family, performed the usual household chores and also worked for 8 to 9 hours to supply Asu material for two to three saris per day for eking out a precarious living. Working on the loom was not too strenuous for him, but the pain of his mother did bother him a great deal. He wondered if there could be an alternative method for Asu that would mean a better living condition as well as less physical drudgery for his mother. If there is a power loom to replace manual loom, why cannot there be a mechanical device to alleviate his mother’s pain? This thought became the genesis of the Asu Machine. And at the age of 20 years, in 1992, this young innovator started his dream project. By 1999, he had developed his first machine which was mounted on a wooden frame. This was the first machine ever used for the Asu process. With this machine the process did not require much supervision. In the second machine developed a year later there was a steel frame instead of wooden one. Moreover, the speed of operation was marginally increased; a provision for stopping the machine when the thread got cut was incorporated in addition to some other minor improvements. This was the first machine to be sold. This was followed by sale of sixty machines in 2001 followed by the sale of almost hundred pieces each year from 2002 to 2004. In order to improve the automation process many electronic components were incorporated by him in 2005. The number of threads on each peg could also now be adjusted. These changes resulted in almost 90 per cent noise reduction. The revised design also helped reduce electricity consumption. Considering the fact that most weavers would not be able to afford the new machine, Mallesham took special care to incorporate such changes which did not escalate the cost. Using this machine, the time to finish one sari has reduced from four hours to one hour and thirty minutes. This means that instead of two saris per day, now six saris could be made and that too in a wide variety of designs, which was not possible earlier. Till date Mallesham has sold over 600 Asu machine. His mother does not complain of pain in her arms anymore, and Mallesham’s happiness is beyond measure noticing the relieved faces of the women of the weaving community. But he is not satisfied yet! His first aim is to provide an Asu machine to all the families of the silk sari weaving community in the state. He then plans to develop a loom for weaving sarees, which would do away with the need to use hand and legs for operating the loom. He has already developed a small prototype. He mentions that most of the younger generation is keeping away from weaving due to the very strenuous labour work required for working on the looms. It involves 3000 movements of legs and a similar number of hand movements per sari, over a period of 2 to 3 days. Because of this, many weavers are switching over to other jobs, which require less physical work. Mallesham has almost completed a machine, which imitates the manual movements of hands and legs to weave a sari. Another tryst with destiny probably! Vol 19(3) Jul-Sep 2008Dadaji- HMT improved paddy varietyDadaji Ramaji Khobragade is a progressive farmer who has developed many rice varieties. Among them, Dadaji HMT is one which was developed from Patel 3 variety through selection. The variety is white, thin and matures at 130-135 days. It has high resistance, high recovery percentage and yields upto 45 q/ha. The variety has already been granted a certificate of registration under PPVFRA. (Registration No.: 14 of 2012 on 4/4/2012). In 1994 Khobragade was approached by the Sindewahi Rice Station, a part of Dr. Punjabrao Krishi Vidyapeeth. It took five kilograms of seeds of the new variety under the pretext of experimenting. But in 1998 they released a new variety named PKV HMT. They claimed that Khobragade’s variety was ‘impure’ and that they purified the local HMT and released it under its new avatar called PKV HMT. To Khobragade there was (and still is) no apparent difference between his and theirs. A recent research study by Riya Sinha (2008) with the help of Dr Agrawal at CCMB, Hyderabad has established without any ambiguity that PKV HMT and HMT are one and the same variety. After NIF’s recognition in 2005, another report in the Indian Express newspaper quoted PKV’s Vice Chancellor Sharad Nimbalkar mentioning, ‘‘we only say we have characterised, purified and improvised the breed so that it doesn’t get mixed with any impurity in the natural course. And we should appreciate that it is scientifically necessary to do so.’’ He went on to add that the PKV would felicitate Dadaji, ‘‘Nobody can take it away from Dadaji...I will immediately send him the authentication papers for the award’’. Vol 20(4) Oct-Dec 2009 Innovation from Assam is creating ripples on Saurashtra’s coast Manually drawing water from tubewells or borewells is tiring. Mohammad Mehtar Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmad, dist. Darrang, Assam devised a simple windmill using locally available materials like bamboo, timber, strips of old tyres and pieces of iron to ease the process of drawing water. The technology was awarded by NIF in 2007. In 2008, the Network was looking to use another innovation, the Bullet Santi for harvesting salt from salt panes. During one such visit the GIAN team observed that the location had ample wind and the water tables were not deeper than fifty feet. It was soon realised that the windmill could be used for pumping water for the salt farming. Salt farming in Gujarat is a low paying occupation. Without many alternatives the salt farmers have to somehow manage their livelihoods on a very low annual income. Many in the region are still dependent on the millennia old technology of shaduf counterpoise pumps. In a coastal region with saline ground water and dry winds, working for hours under the sun is hard work. Some farmers in the region also use diesel pumps. Use of a windmill in this context seemed like an affordable and a sustainable solution. Consequently, several modifications were made in the design to adapt it for use in salt farming. After consultation with experts at Alstom Wind, collaboration with a local manufacturer, Kaushik Chaudhary, and design inputs from students from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), GIAN developed an improved design of the windmill. The resulting product was a windmill which could operate at low wind speeds of about 8 to 10 km/hr. The windmill, in its current form, can pump water from a maximum depth of about 50 feet. The water discharge capacity is about 1200-1500 L/hr at a wind speed of 1012 km/hr. It can be fitted onto a tubewell or an open well for light irrigation as well as for potable water. Moreover, the windmill is affordable in the medium to long term. The windmills have forced a change in the lifestyle of the salt farmers. In many cases, the windmill has freed at least one individual per salt farm to seek alternative employment such as working at the Pipavav port in the vicinity to augment the family income. In the traditional method, one person is occupied with the counterpoise pump for about an hour every day. During this time all other work such as preparing or repairing the pans and loading the dried salt onto the salt pile has to stop unless some other member from the family does the work. With the introduction of the windmill, the water is drawn on its own while the salt farmer carries out other tasks. One significant benefit that windmills bring to the salt workers is that they are not exhausted by the time they reach home and so can engage in other productive work. According to one of the salt farmers, less tiredness means that people do not resort to drinking or other addictions to “alleviate their painâ€. Other social issues related to drinking are also consequently addressed. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 25(4) & 26(1) 26-30, 2014-2015 (25 years celebration) |
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