Name : Sukomal Basak
District & State : Cooch Behar, West Bengal
Category : Utility
Award : National
Award Function : 5th National Grassroots Innovation Awards
Award Year : 2009
Innovation Description
An interesting idea to have a jug that can automatically dispense the liquid contents in the glass has been conceived by Sukomal Basak (36) from West Bengal.
Born and brought up in Tufanganj, Sukomal runs a grocery shop. Tufanganj is a small densely populated municipality of Cooch Behar. Predominantly middle class, the people here are engaged in various services. He lives in a joint family with his parents, wife, son and two younger brothers. A school drop out, he did not continue his education beyond class ten as he had to assist his father in running the grocery shop. His immediate younger brother is also class ten pass and runs a pan shop nearby. The youngest brother completed his graduation in commerce and works in a mobile shop.
Since his childhood, Sukomal had a keen interest in the biographies of great innovators like Edison and Graham Bell. He also liked the science subjects. Of and on he did conceive many ideas but did not think sufficiently hard enough to convert them into prototypes. Lack of funds also did not help his desire to innovate. One interest that has continued till date unabated is his liking for newspapers. In fact it was through the Anand Bazaar Patrika, one of the most read and influential news papers of West Bengal that he first came to know about NIF. After the NIF’s Third Award function in 2005, the news about Mahabir Chaube of Bankura winning an award for his idea about an innovative screw was published in the news paper. This intrigued Sukomal and he decided to do something of his own too. To get better ideas, he even started watching Discovery and National Geographic Channels.
When the advertisement of NIFs’ Fifth National Competition for Grassroots Innovations and Traditional Knowledge Practices got published in February 2006 in Anand Bazaar Patrika, he ascertained his eligibility for participation and started thinking about different ideas. Finally a few months later, he submitted his idea about the self dispensing jug.
The thought about the idea
Sukomal started going to the ration shop to purchase kerosene for the household class five onwards. He used to observe that how the helper in the ration shop transferred kerosene from a larger container to a smaller one by sucking an end of a plastic pipe. One day he tried replicating the same at his home using water. He was successful. He started thinking of using this concept somewhere for practical utility. While in class eight he read a story, ‘Technology for Mankind’, where there was a reference to restaurants and serving of water. It immediately struck to him that he could develop this idea for such an application. The idea lay dormant in his mind till he submitted it to NIF many years later.
http://nif.org.in/innovation/self_dispensing/27