17-year-old Suryapet boy’s tools make farmers’ life easy

Gorre Ashok makes low-cost farm equipments to help small and marginal farmers cut cost of cultivation

Suryapet: The realisation that farmers were spending a major portion of their earnings towards buying farm implements and for engaging labourers made this 17-year-old devise low-cost tools that could be of immense use for them.

Gorre Ashok, whose father is a farmer and owns five acres in Ajalapuram of Huzurnagar mandal, began fabricating low-cost tools after joining the Intermediate Vocational Course in Government Junior College at Devarakonda. Proper guidance and support from District Science Officer A Lakshmipathi enabled him to carry on his work with confidence.

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Ashok has so far fabricated six low-cost tools, which include a seed sowing tool, low-cost portable paddy hand weeder and a monkey gun. His first innovation was a multi-purpose hand tool for weeding chili and cotton corps, gathering paddy grains and dry and bundle paddy grass.

The youngster won the first prize at the Students Engineering Model Competition at the India International Science Festival 2019 organised by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences, in association with Vijnana Bharati, in Kolkata.

With financial help from Pogula Ganesham of Palle Srujana, a platform for grassroots innovators, Ashok joined a one-year course, Diploma in Basic Rural Technology, at Vigyan Ashram, Pune, to get training in electronic and mechanical innovations.

Speaking to Telangana Today on phone from Pune, Ashok said he does not want to make money through his inventions, but his aim was to reduce the cost of cultivation for small and marginal farmers. He has so far made 17 low-cost portable paddy hand weeders. After he got a request for the tool from several farmers from Anantapur district, he sent the design to a local welder and assisted him to fabricate it. The low-cost portable paddy hand weeder costs Rs 300, but if it were to be made elsewhere and transported to Anantapur, the cost would increase by Rs 700.

Ashok said farmers in his district were purchasing branded sprayer vehicles and other tools by spending lakhs of rupees. For this, they were heavily borrowing money. To avoid such wastage of money, he designed a multi-purpose utility vehicle in about six months. He, however, did not disclose much about the product.

The government should encourage local manufacturers, instead of forcing farmers to purchase tools manufactured by big companies, to help reduce their financial burden, he said. Ashok also has a YouTube channel in his name to disseminate information about his innovations. He has also uploaded videos of agricultural tools invented by others.

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