BHAWANIPATNA: Technology has made life easier for a large chunk of the population. It has come in handy for the farmers in many ways and a paddy cleaning machine is the latest addition to the list. Agriculture, which has always been considered labour intensive and time consuming, gets a shot in the arm with the invention of the ‘Unique’ machine.
With an aim to reduce the burden on farmers and provide them with a scope to produce more in a short time, Benudhar Sahu of Medinipur village in Bhawanipatna block devised a paddy cleaning machine. Named ‘Unique’, the machine can separate husk from paddy in a much lesser time than the traditional method. Traditionally, winnowing of paddy is done by bamboo ‘kullas’ and the process is time consuming and labourious. In some areas, even hand and power operated fans are used to separate husk from paddy but even this is a labourious process. Benudhar’s machine besides being cost effective is also less time consuming. His ‘Unique’ machine has two options of running either on electricity or kerosene. The machine has a propeller, rotating drum, high speed fan, iron net of different mesh and vibrator. The machine can clean 12 to 15 quintals of paddy per hour. Besides paddy, the machine can be used to clean moong and urad dals. Sahu has invested about Rs 10,000 on the machine and is now, contemplating to manufacture more on commercial basis so as to make it available to farmers between Rs 5,000 and Rs 6,000. For small farmers, he plans to manufacture manually-operated machines that can be affordable.
At present, Benudhar lends his machine to farmers of the area at Rs 100 per hour.