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Wonder Innovations of Naive Villagers |
| Addoor Krishna Rao | |
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President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was astride on a bicycle. There is nothing strange in our beloved President, known for his simplicity, riding a bicycle. But the bicycle he was on was special. The bike which can also remove weeds was designed by Gopal Malhari Bhise. Technology involved in this multipurpose bicycle originated by a villager astounded even the technicians present on Dec 17, 2002 at the 2nd annual celebrations of the National Innovation Foundation in Delhi. On that day the President felicitated ten people with innovations that would make life easy for villagers especially farmers and home industrialists. Interacting with the award winners intimately, President Kalam pressed on all our national research stations to go into all these grass root level research innovations and, after that some industrial unit must come forward to produce and sell them. The innovations displayed during this programme were examples of the talent of man. The mat making machine evolved by Pasupati Marthandan was one such. It can be modeled to work by handle or pedal. It is possible to prepare mats based on length wise and breadth wise stitching or by V- formed stitching. This can be used to pack jaggery, matchboxes, or fish etc. as well as mats for household use. A bicycle with special characteristics for village roads was invented by Kanakadas from Assam. We all know that when a bicycle is run on a road with pits its speed decreases. But when the wheels of Kanakadasa's cycle runs over the pits in the road its speed is enhanced. The paddy variety developed by M. Lingamadayya of Bangalore district is an example of a ryots research instinct. Lingamadayya started farming on his 16-acre farm in 1983. In the International Seed Seminar held in 1994, a Philippine farmer presented to him just a few seeds of paddy variety. When he sowed them only 12 seeds germinated. Selecting these seeds he raised a crop in an organic way as instructed by the Philippine farmer. The attack of pests and diseases for this variety was less. An early variety it yielded about 30 quintals. Gaining recognition in the surrounding areas in course of time, this outstanding variety has won the hearts of the ryots. National Innovations Pratishtan has been conducting country level competitions in the last three years to support and popularise such wonderful innovations which have been evolved in remote villages, without any technical support and without any worry for patents. The Honeybee Network, The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Ahmedabad's "SRISTI" are the co-promoters of this competition. In the first competition held in 2002 there were 1600 entries and in the next year (2003) 21,000 entries. Today the knowledge of the 37,000 grassroot level innovations in the files of the Foundation is the biggest treasury of knowledge in the world. Innovations range from farm implements, traditional medicines, rural-friendly machines and vehicles to a farming process or a new variety of species. The innovations of our rural researchers can gain international recognition. The machine invented by Mansukh Bhai Patel of Gujarat to prepare cotton threads has secured patent rights in April 2003. This shows the high quality of the machine. The patent was issued by the United States Patent and Trade Mark office of USA. Its number is USPTO-6543091. SRISTI had applied for the patent right on behalf of Mansukh Bhai. Seven villagers have secured patents so far because of the efforts of SRISTI. SRISTI has so far submitted applications for patent rights in India and USA on behalf of 60 villagers. Instead of expressing helplessness that foreigners and multinational companies have plundered our traditional know how and the remarkable innovations of our naïve villagers what we have to do has been shown by the National Innovations Foundation and SRISTI. Let us join hands in their efforts. The applications should be sent to National Innovation Foundation, Bangalore 1, Satellite Complex, Jodhpur Tekra, Premchand Nagar Road, Ahmedabad-380015.
Addoor Krishna Rao is a known writer and development critic. He is a CAAM team member.
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