It is an Enfield motorcycle with
a difference. By removing the back wheel and replacing it with a spiked
cylinder, it doubles as a tractor.
It was devised and built by Mansukhbhai,
of Gujarat, who could not afford to buy a tractor, and thought of this
dual use for his diesel motorbike.
It is just one example of the wealth
of small innovations that are flooding into the National Innovation Foundation,
or NIF, in India.
Its aim is to collect good ideas
at grassroots level and develop them.
"It is time the world recognises
the potential of the grassroots genius to solve problems of society," NIF's
director, Dr Anil K Gupta, told BBC News Online.
"NIF is building a national register
of grassroots innovation and traditional knowledge; it has set up a micro-venture
innovation fund for individuals who have no bank account and who cannot
produce any balance sheet and yet have innovations that warrant investment
of risk capital."
From small ideas
The foundation was established three
years ago with a single grant of 200 million rupees ($4m). One of its board
members is Dr R A Mashelkar, director-general of the Indian Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research.
He says these small-scale innovations
are as important as those that are developed in big laboratories.
"There are innovators who innovate
in the 'laboratories of life' and yet they never get recognised," he said.
"Their innovations are as good or
even more important. As far as India is concerned, when we say someone
is illiterate, we tend to discard them. We cannot really appreciate that
they can be a genius."
In a country with 600,000 villages
where electricity and water still remain big problems, people continuously
find alternative ways of meeting their needs.
Like Sunda Ram Verma, from Data
village, Sikar district of Rajasthan.
He devised a technique of keeping
plants alive in the desert without watering them more than once a year.
He conserves the water that normally is lost by capillary action and to
unwanted weeds.
World of difference
"After a few days of the first rain
of the monsoon, we till the land so that all the weeds that have grown
by now are removed. Then the monsoon brings more rain and before it ends
we till again.
"Tilling to eight or 10 inches down
breaks the capillaries in the top layer of the soil. Then we plant the
sapling with its roots about half a metre down.
"Water from the ground can only
come up where there are intact capillaries - so it comes up past the plant's
roots but doesn't rise to the surface. And the plant gets water for the
year long."
Rajasthan is a part of India where
water is scarce even for drinking. Other areas of the world share a similar
situation. Sunda Ram Verma's ideas could be of use outside India.
There is a tool that could certainly
make a difference around the tropics.
It is a coconut de-husking machine
- powered by a foot pedal. The machine spins the nut around and a spike
removes the husk. It was devised by a farmer in Kerala, and has greatly
increased the efficiency of his entire village.
Intellectual property
One of the National Innovation Foundation's
aims is to patent such ideas - so that if they are developed, the inventor
gains, and no one else can come along and appropriate the idea.
As a lecturer in intellectual property
at the Indian Institute of Management, NIF's Anil Gupta, is ideally placed
to guide the patenting process.
"We have filed about 60 patents
in India for various innovators in their name and about six in the US.
"The first patent was granted to
Mansukhbhai on 8 April 2003 in the US. We are trying to prove that with
the right kind of cooperation globally, the forces of globalisation can
indeed be harnessed for empowering the grassroots innovators."
Some of NIF's innovators, however,
are not waiting for patents - they are already marketing their inventions.
Spawning good ideas
Balubhai Vasoya, from Ahmedabad
in Gujarat, developed a stove that uses both kerosene and electricity.
A six-volt electric coil heats the
kerosene, converting it into gas which burns with a blue flame. Balubhai
says it saves 70% on fuel compared with conventional stoves running on
LPG.
"One litre of kerosene lasts for
eight hours; and in 20 hours, the stove uses one unit of electrical power.
So running it for an hour costs one-and-a-half rupees in total. No smell,
no smoke; its burns like LPG."
From machines that wash cows to
cotton strippers; palm-leaf mat-making devices to tamarind harvesters -
the innovations keep pouring in.
Sixteen-thousand people have sent
in their ideas so far; and as word of the foundation's existence spreads,
they are coming in faster and faster.
