Dadara youth innovating for commoners

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Jan 16: “Innovation should also target  common people as beneficiaries and it should be easily available. Discovery and innovation often benefit the rich,” said Bhabesh Das, father of President award winner Lahar Jyoti Das of Dadara. Lahar(18) won the President Award in 2016 for innovating a pan processing and delivery machine.

Lahar’s project was among the selected 28 projects from among some 55,089 submissions from 458 districts in India. The award was conferred on him at the tiol Innovation Foundation Institute (NIF-I) in Ahmadabad.

The pan processing and delivery machine is a robot like innovation which is capable of delivering pan to six customers at a time. It is able to process seven pans in three to five seconds. Two discs are fitted to the machine which would carry underneath respective nozzles. The nozzles in turn spray the ingredients necessary for each type of pan. Six hands protruding from the machine deliver pans according to the demand.

“He has been a keen observer of activities happening around him. He saw me struggling with many customers at a time at my shop. The materials which are required to make the machine are easily available and recyclable,” Bhabesh said.

“I have started innovating from a very young age. Along with studies I practice innovation,” Lahar, who reads in in twelfth standard, said.

Lahar has been receiving fincial support from NIF-I for future innovations and practice.

Lahar has a remote-controlled dust bin in his innovation list. The dust bin connected to a wire moves to and fro when controlled with a remote control.

“The city roads are filled with waste in spite of the presence of dust bins. Litters and waste are found lying astray, beside the dust bins making the environment filthy.  I thought how could innovation help to address this problem. The moving dust bin which can be wireless when fit with a sensor can go to every household to collect waste and empty itself in the respective places. People don’t want to go to the dust bins but the dust bin can come to them,” Lahar said.

Lahar’s small-scale innovations include a charging machine which works with kinetic energy. A small handle of the mobile charging machine when rotated in a circular motion provides current to the mobile to charge the battery.

Lahar’s father lamented that in spite of ground-breaking innovations by his son one of which even earned him presidential award, he failed to draw the notice of the locals or even from the administration.