MANGALURU: Neha Bhat, a Class 10 student from Vivekananda English Medium School, Puttur, has won the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Innovation award for school children.
She has developed an efficient multi-purpose eco-friendly battery-operated automatic spraying machine which can be used as a pesticide, weedicide or insecticide sprayer primarily in areca plantations.
Laghu Udyog Bharati – Karnataka chapter, that works for the cause of micro and small enterprises across the state is currently fine-tuning the device.
Neha, who secured the third prize, told TOI that arecanut is a major commercial crop that is grown in this region and the crop suffers from fruit rot disease during monsoon. The farmers spray bordo mixture using a traditional gator pump.
“This could lead to wastage of the fungicide and the biggest challenge is that pressure has to be applied manually and variation in the pressure applied could have an impact on the output, “ she said.
Neha was keen on simplifying this process and also making it safe and farmer-friendly. She benefited from the Shell NXplorers programme. The device fitted with rechargeable batteries works up to five hours. “It is not only three times efficient than the traditional gator pump, it makes spraying less labour intensive and is also fitted with a liquid indicator that will beep when the fungicide quantity is about to get exhausted. The inlet of the device is connected to a 200-litre fungicide barrel. The kit is mounted on a wheeled cart that makes transportation easy, she explained.
Neha started work on the project in July last year. She presented the project at Anveshana – Agri Tinkering Fair held at the school. Experts from the Atal Tinkering Lab in the school have helped her. The guidance also came from her grandfather K Subrahmanya Bhat, an agriculturist with whom Neha visits the areca plantation regularly. She is the daughter of Muralidhar K and Meera Murali, agriculturist and entrepreneur who is into manufacturing herbal drinking water. Neha aspires to become an Ayurveda doctor.
“Though her father is the correspondent of the school, he has never favoured his daughter or interfered with her activities at school. She is treated like any other student. She is a Rajya Puraskar guide and is preparing for her senior grade Carnatic music exam. She is an active participant in all school activities,” Sathish Kumar Rai, principal of the school said.