HYDERABAD: Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT), Basar, is turning some of its engineering students into campus farmers. Towards this end, it has organized a first of its kind of a contest “Campus Farming” as part of its just concluded Antahpragnya 2020.
250 Engineers are participating in it. It is an on Campus Cultivation Competition. Towards this end the premier educational institute RGUKT arranged them 1.5 acre land. A team of students who call themselves as ‘Techies for Karshaks’ have taken up campus farming. They are engineering students from different streams -- mechanical, civil, metallurgy, chemical, electrical, electronic, computer Science at RGUKT.
The 250 students have enrolled for ‘Campus Farming’ competition as part of the “Antahpragnya 2020”, India’s biggest rural technical festival to be held at RGUKT, in the temple city of Basar, which is 180 kms away from Hyderabad. Altogether nine teams including two PUC (Pre University Course) teams are competing for the championship. It all began as an idea for Aditya Alladi, Jagadeshwar Edigi, Sandeep Aleti who then mooted the idea to the central team.
Nine teams comprising 20-30 members in each team began their cultivation by sowing Spinach seeds in December. But for their bad luck, they too had to face bad weather which delayed the process. Then seeds were sown. But stray dogs played havoc in the fields. Fencing was not possible as it involved cost. Their campus provided tractor to plough the fields. They used another agricultural device designed by RGUKT students that does three jobs… ploughing, sowing and spraying.
It’s been 30-35 days since the crop was sowed it has reached the stage to judge the quality of the crop by 150 farmers invited to decide the champions. Mechanical engineering team walked away with the Championship.
The nine teams comprised 225 students invested roughly 1,080 man hours to reach the stage where the crops are today. The students themselves came up with the idea of ‘Techies for Karshak’. T Rakesh Reddy, Asst. Professor, Bio Science and Bio Engineering Department, RGUKT-Basar and Coordinator – Innovation Incubation Entrepreneur Development cell guided the students in their endeavour.