Minister KTR appreciates young innovator Ashok, assures help

Hyderabad: Industries Minister K. Tarakarama Rao appreciated young innovator Ashok for inventing a Low cost and Portable paddy hand weeder, a device that helps remove bigger weeds from paddy fields in an easy manner.

Telangana state's Chief Innovation Officer Phanindra Sama and young innovator Ashok met Minister KTR at Pragathi Bhavan today. Minister appreciated the young innovator for his invention and said that the agriculture sector needs more of such innovations. He instructed Phanindra Sama to provide complete assistance to Ashok.

Ashok is 17 years old young innovator from Suryapet, Telangana. He was awarded the first prize under the Agriculture Sector category at Students Engineering Model Competition held at the India International Science Festival 2019 (IISF) organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology & Ministry of Earth Sciences in association with Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA) in Kolkata. This platform intends to inspire curiosity and make learning more rewarding.

Ashok is currently studying in class 12th and parallelly pursuing vocational agriculture at Devarkonda Vocational Junior College. He aims to make more innovations that can solve pressing problems, especially for small farmers.

Paddy is one of the majorly grown crops in Telangana. Women have to bend constantly to remove the weeds manually, which is a strenuous task. Sometimes weeds grow longer with deep roots that make the task even more difficult. Identifying this problem in the state and across the country, Ashok invented a Low cost and Portable paddy hand weeder.

Ashok is a serial innovator and currently has three innovations in his name including, an alarm for the deaf that releases an odour at a fixed time. Another innovation is a Multipurpose Hand tool for small farmers that do four essential activities at an affordable cost like weeding in cotton and chilli crops, seed-bed preparation in cotton and chilli crops, gathering paddy grains, and dry paddy grass to make bundles.

Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) and Palle Srujana helped him display his innovations at various exhibitions across the country. His innovation was popularised by the word of mouth and is now demanded by various farmers across the state, he presently has around 17+ orders.

Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao and Peddapalli ZP Chairman Putta Madhu were also present during the meeting.