Coconut shredder helps curb mosquito menace

Kiran Engineers proprietor T.P. Ramachandra Rao giving a demonstration of the coconut shredder at his factory in Vijayawada. -Photo: V. Raju

Discarded tender coconuts offer an ideal breeding conditions to mosquitoes. This is not unknown to the municipal officials, but they can do nothing except carry out fogging operations as no one has ever turned their attention to effective ways of destroying the leftover coconuts.

Showing a way to them, T.P. Ramachandra Rao, proprietor of Kiran Engineers at J.R.D. Tata Industrial Estate here, developed a machine that can shred the discarded coconuts into pieces which can be used as a fuel.

The machine can be mounted on a trolley, powered either by a 3 HP motor or 5 HP diesel engine costs just about Rs. 1 lakh. Civic bodies which face problem of disposal of discarded tender coconuts can look at these machines for a solution, says Mr. Ramachandra Rao.

He told

The Hindu that the juicy matter and little quantities of water left in the coconuts attract mosquitoes, which multiply in the undisturbed conditions. These coconuts take three to four weeks for completely drying up and before it happens ‘fresh stocks’ arrive.

The machine developed by Mr. Ramachandra Rao, a mechanical engineer specialising in making bio-mass shredding machines, can process about 2,000 to 3,000 coconuts in an hour. The machine consumes power worth just two paisa per coconut.

T.P. Ramachandra Rao, proprietor of Kiran Engineers, develops a machine that can rip apart the discarded coconuts into pieces which can be used as a fuel