Name : Mr. Masoor Pehalwan
District & State : -1, Andhra Pradesh
Category : Utility
Award : Consolation
Award Function : 1st National Grassroots Innovation Awards
Award Year : 2001
Innovation Description
Mr. Pahalwan is a fisherman in the Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh. In 1972, when he was coming out of a shop in Hyderabad, he noticed a heap of plastic – based Thermocol-packing material lying around. The thought of using this as ‘floats’ for fisherman struck him. That is how the idea of low cost thermocol catamaran was born.
For making thermocol catamaran thermocol sheets empty chemical fertilizer bags or gunny bags, plastic rope and a bodkin to stitch the bags are required. Two thermocol sheets of 1 meter length and 0.5 meter width and 6″-8″ inches thickness are inserted into two used synthetic or gunny sacks. The mouth of the sacks are arranged side-by-side and stitched together with a plastic rope using a thick bodkin.
the thermocol catamaran is light in weight (less than 10 kilos) and can be transported very easily on head load, by hand or on bicycle.
adouble paddle giving strokes atternately moves it to either side. it glides faster than the traditional catamaran. A 5-6 feet long double paddle is enough to move the catamaran. They are safe as they are found buoyant operation and maintenance are easy.
thus this new technology makes use of simple readily available waste materials and can be fabricated with minimum of manual skills. It is highly utilitarian for inland fishing and is cheap it does not require any power of fuel and saves many trees from cutting.