A low cost and portable paddy hand weeder invented by 17-year-old Ashok from Suryapet has earned him recognition and appreciation from many quarters, including IT and Industry Minister K.T.Rama Rao.
A student of class 12, who is simultaneously pursuing vocational agriculture at Devarakonda Vocational Junior College, Ashok displayed his innovation at the Students Engineering Model Competition and bagged the first prize in the agriculture sector category.
The event was held as part of the India International Science Festival 2019 and organised by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences in association with Vignana Bharathi at Kolkata.
Ashok met Mr. Rama Rao at Pragati Bhavan here on Saturday accompanied by Telangana Chief Innovation Officer Phanindra Sama and explained how the device helped in easily removing cumbersome weeds with deep roots in paddy fields. Mr. Rama Rao appreciated the young innovator for the low-cost invention and said the agriculture sector needed more such innovations. He instructed Mr.Phanindra to provide complete assistance to Ashok.
Paddy is one of the majorly grown crops in the State and women have to bend constantly to manually remove the weeds, which is a strenuous task. Sometimes weeds grow longer with deep roots making the task even more difficult. Identifying the problem in the State and across the country, Ashok came up with his innovation.
The young student has other inventions to his credit and they include an alarm for the deaf that releases an odour at a fixed time while another is a multi-purpose hand tool for small farmers that can do four essential activities like weeding in cotton and chilli crops, seed-bed preparation in cotton and chilli crops, gathering paddy grains and bundling dry paddy grass.
Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) and Palle Srujana helped the teenager display his innovations at various exhibitions across the country. His innovation was popularised by the word of mouth and is now demanded by various farmers across the State — he presently has over 17 orders.
Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao and Peddapalli ZP Chairman Putta Madhu were also present during the meeting.
