CTARA – Exciting opportunities
Harish, Ritika and Gauri talk about some interesting research happening in the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas
The IIT Bombay community first started paying attention to rural problems during the severe drought that hit Maharashtra from 1970-73. Prof. P. K. Kelkar, the then Director of IIT Bombay, sanctioned two positions for RAs who would look into solutions for rural problems. An Appropriate Technology Unit (ATU) was also formed, with Prof. Anil W. Date (presently Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engg. and Head, CTARA) as its convenor. Prof. Date would visit various voluntary organisations and find ideas which could be worked on as B.Tech. projects by IIT students. Several innovative designs such as a paddy drier and a mango pulp drier were made; unfortunately, none was seriously implemented. Finally, The Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas was established in July 1985. The Centre has been headed by Prof. Date (1985-91), Prof. S. D. Shah (1991-98), Prof. P. Vasudevan (1998-2002), Prof. Gaitonde (2002-2005) and Prof. Date (2005 onwards).
The M.Tech. ProgrammeThe idea of an M.Tech. programme was first mooted by Prof. Date in 1989; however, due to an unwritten rule that only full-fledged Departments
could conduct their own academic programmes, the idea never took off. In 2000, however, Prof. Ashok Misra, on taking charge as Director, expressed an interest in the idea. And so in July 2007, the M.Tech. programme in Technology and Development finally took off, and has since become the major focus of CTARA.
The selection procedure is rigorous- after clearing the GATE, students are required to frame a Statement of Purpose and to clear a written test and an interview. In 2007, the programme had 170 applicants, of whom 10 were finally selected and in 2008, 11 (including 2 girls) were selected from out of 450.
Says Kalyan Tanksale, a 1st year student of the Programme with a background in Electrical Engineering and a year's work experience as a lecturer in Pune, "Our country produces many engineering graduates who, unfortunately, don't know how to apply their skills to the problems of society." And so, the purpose of the programme is, in Prof. Date's words, to train engineers "to work at the interface of technology and development".
The programme aims at training students to take a broader view of any problem. In addition to courses concerning the 3 key factors in rural areas- Water, Soil and Energy- students do courses in areas like Economics, Sociology, Public Policy and Governance, Project Management, System Dynamics and Appropriate Technology. Many of these are conducted by faculty from other departments, including Civil, Energy, HSS, SOM, CSRE, Mechanical and IE&OR.
Field visits to various NGOs / co-operatives in rural Maharashtra and nearby states are organised every other weekend. In addition, students do a 10-week rural internship in the summer.
The Karjat Check Dam
In 2006, on the initiative of Prof. Milind Sohoni (CSE), CTARA built a 70 m long and 6 m high check dam at Gudhvan Wadi near Kashele (Karjat Taluka) by enlisting the participation of villagers, the Academy of Developmental Sciences (founded by Mr Darshan Shankar in 1979 of which Prof. Date was the Director), a Pune-based contractor (Gangotri), and, of course, several enthusiastic IITians. The dam was successfully built, but later it developed a leak because of the local terrain being extremely prone to faults. Although the fault-fissure was
plugged by gravity-grouting, it appears that pressure-grouting is necessary to fill the gap.
The CTARA Workshop
Located in the basement of the Mechanical Engg. department, the workshop was set up in 1984 with just a drill, lathe, shaping machine, and afew other basic tools. Today, the workshop houses prototypes of various designs made at CTARA over the years, including a pedal-operated battery charger and its variants - a pedal-operated hydraulic pump and foot pedal-operated potter's wheel (similar to a sewing machine). Also present are a seed planter (digs into the soil and plants seeds simultaneously) and a hot air paddy drier (dries paddy in just a few hours). The shed outside houses, among other things, a bullock cart made entirely of metal, built by 2 visiting German students. At present, the workshop is developing a ‘potato puffer’,whose end product is similar to puffed rice.
Food Processing Laboratory projects
(Harishchandra Ramadas and Ritika Goyal are second year students of the Physics and Electrical Engineering Departments respectively, while Gauri Joshi is a fourth year student of the Electrical Engineering Department. They can be contacted at harishchandra@iitb.ac.in, ritika_goyal@iitb.ac.in and gaurijoshi@iitb.ac.in)
The activities of this lab are co-ordinated by Prof. Narendra Shah, CTARA, and the recent work has been sponsored by the Khadi & Village Industries Commission (KVIC). Among its successes:
* A solar dryer, tested for shatavari (asparagus), amla and guava leaves, and stevia leaves (see below).
* Vacuum technology for sneha oil (a herbal oil for relief from muscle and joint pains) extraction at lower temperatures. This process takes only 5 hours as opposed to the conventional process that lasts about 100 hours and requires much more fuel.
* Processing technology for stevia leaves. Stevia leaves, after processing, are 250-300 times sweeter than sucrose, and have an enormous potential as a natural sugar substitute.
* Increasing the shelf life of jaggery / gur, which can be achieved using a suitable multi-layered polymer film.
What Impact?
Admittedly, none of CTARA's projects has made a significant impact in rural India yet. Says Prof. Date, "Unlike agricultural institutes, technical institutes in India assume only teaching and research functions, and and do not have mechanisms in place for the extension of the technologies they develop." He also rues the lack of entrepreneurs willing to invest in rural technologies. "However," he says, "Our greatest contribution to rural India has been the exposure/training we have provided to B.Tech., M.Tech. and Ph.D. students."