Fishing for innovation

BHUPALPALLY : While India’s relationship with jugaad has earned the country applause across the world, a 40-year-old innovator from Korlakunta village of Maha Mutharam mandal in Jayashankar Bhupalapally district is showing why the State is a hotbed for creativity and unique approaches to peculiar problems.

Even without formal education, M Chandrasekhar has come up with a device that helps fishers capture their haul with minimum effort. With the working principle in its name, the battery stunner fishing equipment passes DC electric current to a small portion of a waterbody with the help of a battery and ‘stuns’ the fish in a small area, making the job of fishers like shooting fish in a barrel.

For the initial prototype, he calculated the amount of battery power needed, prepared the sketches for the component needed and used a fertiliser spraying machine. On a single charge, the device can operate for up to six hours.

Although he is still engaged in his community’s traditional occupation of toddy tapping, he runs an electrical items’ repair shop as well, which has earned him the ‘innovator’ tag in Korlakunta and around. Speaking to TNIE, Chandrasekhar says that owing to his family’s financial condition, he was only able to study till Class 4. However, he had always been interested in machines and learnt how to repair electrical equipment while working as a toddy tapper. “My journey in this field started with repairing TVs.

It was during this time that I caught the ‘inventing bug’ and developed a few items on my own,” he narrates. He observed a few fishermen in his village struggling to catch fish and got the idea to employ the use of a small battery shocker stunner for fishing. “After two years of struggle and after spending about Rs 12,000 of my own money, I was able to develop a successful prototype of the product,” he adds.The battery is connected to a DC motor but the electrical power is not sufficient enough to shock a human being, Chandrasekhar says.

He explains that fishers can use a switch to pass the current and when the fish are stunned for the 10 to 15 second period, they can run their nets through and scoop up a large haul of fish in a fraction of the time.
Local fishers got a whiff of his invention and approached him. “Now many fishermen in my village are earning Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 per month with the help of the fish stunner equipment,”  says Chandrasekhar proudly, adding that he is glad to have come up with a contraption that is helping people improve their lives.