ONGC fosters solar chulha

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SIVASAGAR, April 25:  Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, attended the ONGC Solar Chulha Challenge exhibition. The challenge was aimed at developing cost effective and efficient solar power stove systems in line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to touch poor lives by providing them safe and low cost alternatives for clean household cooking. This is the first-of-its-kind initiative taken up by any corporate to promote solar chulha in order to reach out to the last mile of the society. The genesis of the challenge lay in the Prime Minister’s call given to ONGC to foster the development of efficient electric chulha (stove) that can provide smoke-free kitchen, while inaugurating ONGC’s Corporate Office Deendayal Urja Bhawan in September, 2017.

 Shashi Shanker, CMD ONGC, steered the initiative to realize the vision of Prime Minister to make clean cooking alternatives available to the commonest of common citizens of the country. Five finalist teams of the ONGC solar chulha challenge, representing both academia as well as industry, displayed their functional solar chulha prototypes in the exhibition.  Pradhan visited the stall and interacted with the participants to understand the technology and showed keen interest in the innovations that the participants exhibited.

 The team from IIT Bombay won the ONGC Solar Chulha Challenge, claiming prize money of Rs 10 lakh. BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore was placed second, winning a prize money of Rs. 5 lakh. The team from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, claimed third place, earning a prize of Rs. 3 lakh. Participants from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Smith Innovative Appliances Pvt Ltd were awarded a certificate of appreciation and cash incentive of Rs. 1 lakh each.