The rural innovations coming from the grassroots level by the people who actually face the problem can give us solutions which can be cost effective, environment friendly and can also be implemented and adopted for the benefit of people at the same grassroots level quite easily.

P. K. Ravi, a mechanic from Murikkassery, Idukki in Kerala (India) came up with one such innovation - the black pepper thresher, which is helpful for the farmers. He has named the machine as 'Aurora'.

Idukki district of Kerala has large plantation of Pepper and farmers here face many problems while threshing the spice manually. P K Ravi, having seen this since his childhood, developed an innovative black pepper thresher which was advantageous to the traditional threshers available in numerous ways. Aurora's advantageous features have already made it popular among the farmers of the region and farmers are also buying it.

Aurora's Advantages over Conventional Threshing Machine
It can be operated both manually and automatically whereas the conventional machines can only be operated manually.This machine can thresh 300 kg compared to 70 kg of pepper in an hour.It can also be adjusted for threshing white pepper, paddy and other grains which were not possible with the conventional machines.The electricity consumption of this innovative black pepper thresher is less than 1 KWH.The machine can reduce the manual labour by half and hence the labor cost also comes down drastically.Both the manual and automatic version of the machine is less expensive as compared to the conventional machines available in the market.

Recognition and Support for Aurora

The Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Kerala Agricultural University has evaluated the efficiency of this grassroots engineering innovation to be 90 percent with just 2 to 3 percent damage. Moreover, the innovation has also been recognized and certified by the Spices board (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) and has been supported under the board's subsidy scheme.

Ravi has also filed patent application for this innovation. The machine has also been recognized and awarded by the National Innovation Foundation - India (NIF), a non-profit organization and an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; in its 5th National Green Grassroots unaided technological innovation and traditional knowledge.

NIF according to its objective is working on making this low cost grassroots innovation - the black pepper thresher (Aurora) available for the farmers throughout the country.

Ashish kumar D is a student at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He writes on grassroots innovations and other topics. Please visit http://www.nif.org.in/ to know more about grassroots innovations.

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Small and useful innovations like "LPG fuelled Iron" take shape when common people try to improve their efficiency and productivity at work and also start thinking out of the box to solve their daily problems.

In small cities and towns of many developing countries, one can easily find some small street shops, outlets or mobile carts for pressing cloths. Generally, washer men own these shops and they don't use the electric press that we use at our homes. They have two quite common old techniques to choose from. In one of the two, a set of flat irons are heated alternatively from a single heating source to press cloths. The heating source can be a tailor's stove. In the other technique, iron box is used which has hot charcoal burning inside the box to heat the iron. Both of these types have their own limitations and are not so efficient to work with. Now, K Linga Brahmam of India has presented these washer men and shop owners with a third alternative - LPG (gas) fuelled iron.

He has modified the Iron box so that it can run on gas fuels like LPG. The LPG gas from the cylinder goes to the iron box through by a copper pipe. The iron box has a filament and an automatic lighter to ignite it. It also has a knob attached to regulate the gas flow.

Advantages of the LPG fuelled iron

The iron uses a clean fuel LPG in place of charcoal for heating and so is more eco-friendly.This gas fuelled iron is cost effective as it can be used for 24 hours with 1 kg of LPG gas.Unlike the two conventional techniques, it doesn't need long set up timeSince this iron doesn't use electricity it can be used anywhere especially in rural areas where electricity is not available.Many a times washer men in sub-urban areas keep mobile carts which can't have the power supply and so electric iron is out of the picture for them. Being portable, this LPG fuelled iron is very useful innovation for them.With this grassroots innovation there is no fear of cloths getting burned by the charcoal sparks.This gas fuelled iron is simple in design and so has no maintenance cost.

Recognition and support of the grassroots innovation

National Innovation Foundation, India (NIF) has recognized and awarded this grassroots innovation and has supported Linga Brahmam in its development. The product is in ready to market status and has also become popular among washer men in and around Linga's village.

Ashish Kumar D is a student at Indian Institute of Management, India. He likes to write articles on grassroots innovations and other related topics. To know about LPG fuelled iron's feature in detail, please visit http://www.nif.org.in/bd/flexinode/print/1/15384

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