Name : Shrawan Kumar Bajya
District & State : Sikar, Rajasthan
Category : Agricultural (General)
Award : National
Award Function : 9th National Grassroots Innovation Awards
Award Year : 2017
Innovator Profile
Shrawan Kumar (41), a motorcycle mechanic, has developed a number of useful devices to reduce dependence on manual labour, which is getting scarce by day. One of them is an onion harvester, which is a combination of a machine for cutting leaves/topping and a tractor operated digger. He has also developed a motorcycle operated salt turning device for operation in salt farm for a task, which is otherwise done manually.
Having studied till only class ten, Shrawan was earlier engaged in farming, like most members of his community in the region. His father was a mason while mother a housewife. Shrawan got married in 1996 and has a young son. His wife does not have much formal education but understands the requirements of the family well. She has been supporting Shrawan in all his endeavours.
He slowly got disinterested in farming as many operations, especially hoeing and weeding, had to be done manually. He then started undertaking job work for digging tube wells, which he had to leave due to the accidental death of one of his fellow workers. Though by this time, he had worked in this field for about ten years or so. He then joined a workshop as a casual labour and worked for a year. During this period, Shrawan learned most of the work related to machineries including usage of tools and devices like welding machine, lathe machine, fitting and other machining work. In 2010, he started repairing and servicing of motor bikes and bicycles. Later, in 2014, he set up a small workshop for developing agricultural machinery along with his regular work of servicing of motor bikes. As he had to discontinue farming due to lack of machines/ tools, he used the workshop for his research and development during lean time. First he developed a mechanized weeder and later went on to develop a number of machines like salt turning device, cable pipe installation machine, device for nursery plantation of onion, onion and garlic leaf cutting device and digger among others.
http://nif.org.in/innovation/onion-harvester-and-motorcycle-operated-salt-turning-device-/939