Telangana engineer designs harvester that can pick up stones and gravel

Aids in converting barren land into aerable land at 50 per cent cost compared to labour expenses

Hyderabad: Deepak Reddy completed his engineering in 2016. He could have got a job if he tried. But he kept his focus on something big – he wanted to bring barren land owned by his family under cultivation. Despite Manjeera river flowing close by, the 10-acre plot remained uncultivated as it had too many medium sized rocks. It was almost impossible to handpick them, but this seemingly impossible task made Deepak Reddy fabricate a unique harvester that could remove the rocks and make the land arable.

A native of Narayankhed in Sangareddy, Deepak Reddy now stands as a successful entrepreneur after he succeeded in fabricating the multiple harvester, that could be used to harvest Potatos and Onions too.

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“Our land has small to medium-sized stones and gravel. This made it difficult to take up farm operations like ploughing, seeding, irrigating and others,” says Deepak, who is now the founder Bhaumya Innovations, which made the harvester. He was part of the first cohort of I2E Lab of the Telangana State Innovation Council (TSIC). This enabled him to design a pilot study, develop a business model and raise Rs 10 lakh to build a commercially viable product.

“We have designed the multiple harvester that’s powered by a tractor. It will have a digging blade which will dig the stones up. These will be put on a conveyer belt and soil is filtered back to the ground. The stones and gravel are taken to the storage bucket,” he explains.

The plan is to use the same for harvesting root crops like potato and onion. “The root crops grow in a four-five inch depth. The blade can go far deeper and pick them up without damaging the crop. We intend to try this out this season,” he said.

With this, the family was able to take up cultivation of cotton and onion in five acres. “The problem of having land, but not being able to cultivate is not just limited to my family. There are many farmers like us in many districts. Also, the same problem is also seen in many other States,” he points out indicating the potential of usability of the harvester he designed. He had already used the harvester in fields of other farmers for trials.

“We will evolve a business model around the harvester soon. For example, for clearing one acre, it would need at least 20 mandays of labour. That is if ten people come, the work will be done in two days and four people come, it will be done in five days. Getting labour is difficult as there is a shortage. The same work can be done in three to four hours. At 20 mandays, the labour expense will be Rs 9000 per acre. Using the mechanical harvester will cut the expenses by 40 to 50 per cent and this includes the rent for the tractor, diesel, driver and other related expenses, says Deepak.

 

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