| Background |
|
Late Dilip Sinh Rana thoughtfully developed the paddy
thresher, where the stalk of the paddy does not get broken during the
threshing process.Dilip Sinh’s family originally belongs to Unchedia
village of Bharuch but he had to shift to his father in law’s place
after his marriage in 1974, as his father in law did not have anybody to
help him in his work. He completed his education till class tenth and then
started his diploma in mechanical engineering but unfortunately had to
drop out in the first year itself. Since then he had been involved in
farming until his untimely demise in March 2006.He is survived by his
wife, three daughters and a son. His son, who is 20 years old, has taken
care of the farm after the death of his father. The family owns around
twelve acres of agricultural land and produce paddy, sugarcane and other
vegetables. |
| As a child also he possessed
leadership qualities and his friends and others used to come to him to get
help and seek advice. While in his teens, he made a projector all by
himself on which he used to show movies to the children in his area.He was
always ready to help others. Instead of waiting for things to happen he
believed in working and making things happen. Without having any technical
knowledge he was able to mend electricity connections, machines,
automobiles, etc. He never said no to any one who approached him
for help and tried to help in whatever way he possibly could. Since he was
a farmer, he always thought of ways to make life easier for them, without
thinking of getting any financial support or recognition in return. |
| Genesis |
| Traditionally paddy is threshed
by beating followed by winnowing and cleaning by the fan. Paddy stalks are
the main source of fodder for the animals in the region and in addition
they are the raw materials for paper industries. There was shortage of
labour and hence the labour charges were quite high too. |
| These constraints were the
basic ones when he planned to make such a machine. To overcome this labour
intensive paddy threshing and to conserve the paddy strains, Dilip Sinh
developed paddy thresher where the paddy grains and stalks are obtained
separately at the end of the threshing process. |
| He conceived the idea to
develop this machine sometime in 2003, after which he made elaborate
diagrams on paper. The same were presented before GIAN- NIF during his
visit in early 2005, after which some financial support was provided to
him to develop the machine. The development of the present machine took
seven to eight months. |
| Innovation |
| The proposed innovation is a
hybrid product of two well -known concepts i.e. threshing by
beating and retaining the whole stalk and is pollution free and
environment friendly technology.The concept of rubbing the crop in between
threshing drum and concave and obtaining the whole stalk of the paddy
while threshing is in use1 . US
patent nos. 4185642, 3963032, 4174718, 4821744 and 4489735 describe the
threshing mechanism for paddy, wheat and similar crops. In all these
mechanisms, threshing of the crop is achieved by rubbing of the ear-heads
in between the threshing drum and the concave. No whole stalk of the paddy
is retained in these threshers and is blown out in the form of chopped
material called bhusa (husk). |
| However, the proposed
innovation is different from the threshing concept, here threshing is
achieved by beating action, which is mechanized by using tractor power
through PTO.It consists of self-made frame, feeding mechanism, threshing
mechanism, and cleaning mechanism. A pair of pneumatic wheels is provided
for transportation purpose. In feeding mechanism tray type hoppers are
provided to keep the paddy bunches. Paddy bunches are moved forward
through conveyer belts on either sides of the thresher.The upper and lower
conveyer belts are made of thick cotton threads and rotate in opposite
direction. The conveyer belts pass the paddy bunch for 1.5 m length during
which only ear head portion gets |
 |
| hreshed. In this thresher, the
paddy is threshed by beating. Four beaters are provided on the central
shaft.To remove the light foreign material and straw from the grain, two
fans (self-made) are provided. The heavy foreign material and stalks of
the paddy, which fall with the grains, are thrown out with the help of
vibrating elevator, which runs beneath the fans. These fans and the
elevator get the drive from PTO of the tractor. |
| To collect the clean grain, two
grain outlets on either side are provided. Three labours are required to
operate this thresher apart from the tractor power (it can run even by 2
HP motor).Since this thresher does not produce husk, it is environment
friendly and region specific technology. The cost of the thresher is
estimated to be around Rs. 55,000.Using this machine, whole paddy stalk is
obtained instead of chopped pieces, which are the main source of fodder
for animals in the area. In whole stalk the nutritional value is
conserved, it is easy to handle and very good raw material for paper
industry also. The stalks of the paddy yield the income of about Rs.
4000/- per ha.His son is now making efforts made to double the capacity
per unit time as compared to the conventional threshers. |
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