Name : Nitai Das Gupta
District & State : Murshidabad, West Bengal
Category : Engineering
Award : State
Award Function : 5th National Grassroots Innovation Awards
Award Year : 2009
Innovation Description
- Award Status
- IPR Status
During the journey of over seven decades, Nitai Das Gupta, (78), a fabricator, has done a lot of work in developing customized solutions for his clients, for himself and for others. His skill lies in understanding the need and coming up with simple, cost-effective and efficient solutions.
Nitai Das was born in Berhampur, Murshidabad district of West Bengal in 1931. His father was a labourer in a tannery. He was average in studies and in fact did not like it much. But his school gave him something that has remained with him at all times- the skill to write with both hands and that too simultaneously. It so happened, that as a natural left-hander, he used his left hand to write and do things. He was punished by the teacher while thrusting out his left hand to take the chalk from him. (In some local traditions, left hand is considered inauspicious or socially unacceptable) The teacher asked him to use his right hand for writing. This made him train his right hand and he became ambidextrous in simultaneously writing with both hands with equal precision and speed.
Certain financial problems forced him to drop out of school after class eight. In 1942, at the age of eleven years, he opened a cycle repair workshop. Having no agricultural land, this was the main source of income. While picking up various skills in the workshop, he became a self-taught technician and a fabricator.
With a wide experience spanning over 50 years, he has developed a series of innovative applications, ranging from customized vehicles for land and water to developing rides and other structures for amusement parks. Currently, in his ripe old age, he has cut back on new innovations and spends his time supervising workers in his fabrication workshop, Das Gupta Engineering Works. He stays near his workshop, which is close to Berhampur railway station with his wife. He has three daughters; all are married.
http://nif.org.in/innovation/multiple_ideas_innovations/38