Eureka! Bharali develops paddy transplanter

BY Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, July 3: Serial innovator Uddhab Bharali is on a mission to make the common man's life comfortable.

A device, designed to help farmers in transplanting seedlings, was unveiled by Bharali today. It has been constructed in such a way that a farmer can plant seedlings while in standing position.

"Through this device, they can plant seedlings in a standing position. Absolutely no skill is required. We have observed that women tend to suffer from waist and back pain after long hours of work at the field and so are not keen to do the work (of transplating seedlings)," Bharali told The Sentinel.

"The transplanting machines which are available in the market are also beyond their reach - both in terms of cost and technique. Again, the emission of methane gas from these machines in the paddy field is very harmful for the operating women," Bharali said.

He claimed that his new machine maintains the geometry of the transplantation "very accurately" and makes other post-operations like weeding, harvesting etc much more easy.

Two persons are required to handle the manual machine which weighs just 8 kgs. "The machine can insert a minimum of 50 seedlings at a time. The cost of the gadget is less than Rs 5,000," he said.

According to Bharali, his machine is the beginning of a mission to make paddy cultivation easier.  The vice-chancellor of Assam Agriculture University is providing all logistical support to the project on behalf of AAU.

The machine is 53-year-old Bharali's 121th innovation.