Ever since he assumed office, President Pranab Mukherjee has been encouraging grassroots innovators to come up with novel products and become self-reliant.
To give impetus to the grassroots innovation movement in the country, Mr. Mukherjee wants innovators to produce technologically superior products.
A step in this direction is being undertaken with four innovators who will be given an opportunity to stay at Rashtrapati Bhavan for a month.
“A committee will soon be meeting and scan the applications from across the country before clearing the names of four innovators, who will be the lucky ones staying at the sprawling President’s Estate. During their stay, they will get to understand the President’s enthusiasm about promoting innovators as they make a difference in so many lives,” revealed a senior official to The Hindu at the “Innovation Exhibition”, which opened at Rashtrapati Bhavan this past week.
Grassroots innovator Upenderbhai Rathod invented a sturdy bike which could be used for spraying pesticides and bring relief to the agrarian community at his Chittal village in Gujarat.
Mr. Rathod said he wanted to help farmers, especially women, to intelligently use pesticides and prevent crops from getting damaged.
“Another challenge was to make the bike in such a manner that it was easy to use. It saves times. Most importantly, many women are using this bike because it is easy to manoeuvre and they can cover the entire village without having to shell out much on fuel.”
Then there is Mohanlal from Kerala, who in order to protect the livelihood of fishing community and enable it to catch fresh prawns and fish, has discovered an engine propeller system. His system helps in not only saving fuel but also does not pollute the river.
Ravi Teja of the National Innovation Foundation, India, working under the Department of Science and Technology, said after scouting for innovative products, it evaluates and verifies the products.
“We need to know that it is a value addition. And if it is then we go in for intellectual property protection. Though we do not allow plagiarism if the technology has to be used as a commercial proposition, we do encourage people-to-people copying so that more farmers can take advantage of these discoveries which provide solution to different problems.”
