Goa (INDIA): A solar fly killer, a floating toilet soap, a pressure cooker for an espresso maker, and a motorcycle plow. Welcome to ‘Jugaad' or the famed rustic Indian art of innovation and ‘making do'. Rural India, where stable electricity remains a fantasy, like a democracy to say, a Saudi national, has proved to be a remarkable hunting ground for the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) India, which is handpicking these innovations and honing them into marketable products, as part of the Union department of Science and Technology's outreach program. Here's how best we can put the last two innovations in perspective. Mansukhbhai Jagani from Gujarat, in Western India has replaced his pair of bullocks with a 350 cc bullet, the legendary Royal Enfield motor cycle, which he kick-starts every day to plough his 1.25 acre groundnut farm. The bullet's rear wheel has been replaced by a set of two smaller wheels joined by an axle, behind which the metal plough digs into the earth. And the pressure cooker espresso coffee machine innovation has its roots in Bihar, where Mohammad Rozadeen makes his foaming milky espresso coffee for his customers in streets of the immensely backward eastern Champaran district. Heated on a kerosene stove, Rozadeen's pressure cooker emits jets of steam from a longish copper snout running from the cooker lid into the jar of milk, making it hot and frothy. “We track down innovators throughout rural and backward through our honeybee network which is responsible for keeping an eye on rural innovations,” Udit Shah of the NIF told Bikyamasr.com. The pressure cooker espresso machine costs between $ 30 to $ 50 depending on the quality of the pressure cooker used. Next to the espresso machine, are three cycles lined up, only to the naked eye they appear to have been mechanically mated either with a seaplane or a river-paddle boat. According to Shah, the cycle-innovations are still being honed into marketable products which will be up for sale. “They are flood bicycles. There have been many floods in India recently. We are developing these. One of the cycles is an innovation from Bihar, while the other is from UP,” Udit said. While the Bihar innovation has sea plane like platforms alongside side the wheels, the UP innovation has a paddle rotor in the rear (which whirs into action when you pedal the machine), while the cycle is designed to stay afloat with the help of two fabricated plastic buoys. “When we select the idea, the credit of the core idea remains with the innovator. We only use science to make the innovations more perfect in order to make them marketable on a larger scale so that the innovator can make money from his effort,” Udit said. The NIF was founded under the aegis of the Union ministry for science and technology in 2000, with an aim to help become India an inventive and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies without social and economic handicaps affecting evolution and diffusion of green grassroots innovations. Former head of the Center for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) Dr Raghunath Mashelkar heads the governing board of the NIF, while some of the members of board are entrepreneur Kishore Biyani, Prof Devang Khakar among other scientists, innovators and bureaucrats.
