Trailblazers from Rural India

IAnD Exclusive

By Udita Chaturvedi

Photography: Courtesy NIF & IAnD

Mitticool fridge at India Pavilion LDF 2013

The National Innovation Foundation-India is an Indian government initiative to provide institutional support to grassroots green technology and to nurture innovators, who blend traditional knowledge with contemporary technology.

Mansukhbhai Prajapati, Mohammad Rozadeen, CV Raju and Mathews K Mathew are four such pioneers, who will exhibit their genius at the LDF 2013.

 Pressure cooker coffee-machine 

Who would have thought that lack of coffee in small towns would encourage Rozadeen to make a low-cost coffee machine in 1993? He used his street-skills to study the coffee-making process and modified a regular pressure cooker into a coffee-machine with a metal pipe.  A mechanic and a welder by profession, Rozadeen has applied for a patent for his design.

Mitticool fridge

Prajapati is equipped with a sound knowledge of pottery, privileged school education and keen entrepreneurial skills. Applying his innovative mind to these pluses, he has designed the Mitticool fridge in 2005 after testing several prototypes. Mitticool, or ‘The Poorman’s Refrigerator’, as popularly referred to, has been patented, and is made entirely from clay and looks like any other clay-made shelf in a rural household. The fridge provides natural coolness without any artificial form of energy.

Herbal wood ware toys

Another green hat goes to Raju, an agricultural graduate from Andhra Pradesh, who along with local artisans has strengthened his traditional knowledge of vegetative dyes. He has developed new techniques to conserve them and rejuvenate existing stock. Raju has also developed non-toxic, eco-friendly ‘herbal’ wood ware toys for a slowly emerging global market.

'Hawker’ — a solar mosquito destroyer 

The last participant is a nature-lover from Kerala, Mathew, who decided to translate his observation into an innovative product and designed ‘Hawker’ — a solar mosquito destroyer — which became so popular that it sold over 5000 units of the device in 2005. The plastic base is attached to an inverted U-tube and placed in a manner that it gets direct sunlight on the top. The eco-friendly device that uses no toxins destroys nearly 45,000 mosquitoes by simply curtailing reproduction by killing a single female mosquito.

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