Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation has given its prestigious award for the use of science and technology in rural development for the year 2001 to Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi. This is one of the most prestigious awards in India for rural development. The past awardees have included Baba Amte, Sunderlal Bahuguna and Manibhai Desai among others. In the International category it has been given to Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu among others. It was given at a glittering ceremony in Mumbai on 6 November 2001 by Dr. Manmohan Singh the former Finance Minister of India.

Dr. Rajvanshi has been the director of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) at Phaltan, Maharashtra since 1981. NARI is a private non-profit NGO working in rural India. It is a registered trust and does pioneering work in the areas of agriculture, renewable energy, animal husbandry and sustainable development. Dr. Rajvanshi is also the trustee and honorary secretary of NARI. He has concentrated his efforts for last 20 years on how to use modern science and technology to achieve rural development. Dr. Rajvanshi's research has therefore spanned a whole spectrum of areas affecting the lives of rural population. These have included water purification, cooking and lighting, small power generation, and effluent treatment among others. After obtaining B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from I.I.T. Kanpur, Dr. Rajvanshi obtained a scholarship from the government of India for doing research towards a Ph.D. degree in the University of Florida at Gainesville, U.S.A. After receiving his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering with specialization in solar energy, he taught at the University of Florida for two years before returning to India in 1981 to join NARI.

With the help of his colleagues, Dr. Rajvanshi has carried out research in varied subject areas, which were selected based on perceived needs of local population in and around Phaltan. He believes in using the best tools of science and technology to solve the problems of rural India. For example, during his early stay at Phaltan, electricity situation was not very good resulting in frequent blackouts. This made him start work on developing a very efficient, improved lantern. The designing of the lantern required very sophisticated tools of heat and mass transfer, combustion mechanics and fluid dynamics. This lantern christened " Noorie" is a multifuel one and runs on kerosene, diesel and ethanol. It is much more efficient than the existing designs available and is much easier to light. Besides, it also doubles as a cooking stove. There is a good demand for Noorie lanterns both internally and for exports. Recently these lanterns have been exported to the U.S.

During later years he prepared a whole plan for making Talukas energy self-sufficient. He was the principal author of national policy on Energy Self-Sufficient Talukas. This policy is being implemented by the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources, who have started surveying Talukas in different parts of India. As a part of this policy Government of India through Indian Renewable Energy Agency has provided soft loans to 33 biomass based power stations (each of 6 MW capacity) in the country. Another example of need-based research is development of loose biomass gasifier. In Phaltan taluka there are two sugar factories with a lot of farmers growing sugarcane. After cutting the sugarcane, farmers burn the dried leaves on ground. This is not only a loss of a valuable natural resource, but also leads to air pollution. Dr. Rajvanshi and his team have therefore devised and setup at NARI campus a 500 KW_th loose sugarcane leaves gasifier for which they have received a patent. The gasifier is a PLC based system and can be very useful for providing heat and power for rural businesses.

Dr. Rajvanshi, who is originally from Lucknow, has concentrated his efforts for last few years on improving the cycle rickshaw so that the hardships being borne by the rickshaw pullers are reduced. The existing rickshaw has been totally reengineered for comfort of passengers and rickshaw puller. He has therefore developed three types of rickshaws. In the improved cycle rickshaw (IMPRA), the length of chain has been reduced; there is back-wheel braking and three-speed gears and it is lightweight. All these improvements enable the rickshaw puller to take two passengers on a 6-10% slope quite effortlessly without alighting from his seat. Recently these IMPRAs have been exported to Europe. In addition, by attaching a small battery driven motor to IMPRA, a motor-assisted pedal rickshaw (MAPRA) has been developed. This enables the rickshaw puller to take two passengers on a 10% slope at a speed of 10 km/hr without getting down from his seat. Five MAPRAs are successfully running in Pune University Campus. This experiment has elicited tremendous response from other campuses in the country. Efforts are also underway to put them in Hampi at the World Heritage site. Finally, he and his team have developed ELECSHA-an electric rickshaw, which runs at 30-35 km/hr and can travel 60 km with two passengers in one battery charge. Not only will these improved rickshaws prove to be a good alternative to the cycle rickshaws in use presently, but also to the 3 and 6-seater autorickshaws which cause tremendous noise and air pollution in cities like Pune. Dr. Rajvanshi is also trying to set up rickshaw pullers cooperative societies in different cities so that the rickshaw pullers can get loans from the banks to buy the rickshaws. This work on rickshaws has been extensively covered in both print and mass media including BBC, Star News, Doordarshan etc.

In rural areas of Maharashtra there is a widespread network of sugar factories. These factories produce molasses as a byproduct, which is used for producing ethanol in distilleries. The effluent produced in this process is dark-colored and has an obnoxious smell. It also has a very high chemical oxygen demand (COD). Most of the time this effluent is discharged without any treatment and pollutes surrounding water bodies. This affects the health of the people living in these areas. Even if this effluent is treated for producing methane, it is only partially purified. Dr. Rajvanshi has developed a patented method to purify this effluent completely with the help of a catalyst and solar energy. Thus the detoxification of distillery waste takes place via a photocatalyst. This method has been successfully tested on laboratory scale and now a pilot plant has been set up at the NARI campus and is undergoing full scale testing.

In addition to these projects, Dr. Rajvanshi has also concentrated his attention on how farmers can derive maximum benefit from crops such as sweet sorghum and safflower. Techniques for producing syrup from stalk juice of sweet sorghum and ethanol after its fermentation by using solar energy have also been developed under his supervision. Thus Asia's first pilot plant for distilling ethanol and running completely on solar energy was set up at NARI campus in 1987. His efforts also resulted in making NARI the only institute in India to be invited by European Economic Commission to be a part of European network in Sweet Sorghum Research and Development. Consequently NARI’s sweet sorghum hybrids are being tested in Zimbabwe, Thailand, France and Italy. He has also been instrumental in popularizing safflower petal as herbal tea and has developed a battery-operated machine to collect petal from spiny safflower plants. The batteries are charged by solar energy. These petals increase the remuneration to farmers manifold. He is also starting a program on sustainability at NARI whereby from the same piece of land food, fuel, feed and fertilizer production can be optimized.

One of the major efforts mounted by Dr. Rajvanshi has been in the area of use of Internet for rural applications such as e-commerce and technology transfer. Thus, about a ton of safflower seed, 250 kg of sweet sorghum seed and NARI's improved rickshaws and lanterns have been sold world wide through the Internet. Large number of inquiries for NARI technologies are received from all over the world. This small experiment has shown that rural technologies and commodities have a tremendous market world over via a rural based organization. Dr. Rajvanshi has thus shown that good science and technology for solving rural problems can take place in a rural NGO.

The Central Government and Government of Maharashtra have appointed Dr. Rajvanshi on many prestigious committees. He has therefore served on central Government committees like Advisory Board of Energy, Planning Commission and Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources among others. At state level he has been nominated as member State Planning Commission (Energy and Environment Advisory Committee) and advisory board of Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission. He is the principal author of National Policy on Energy Self-Sufficient Talukas that is being implemented by the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources. He has been advisor and consultant to International Foundation of Science (Sweden), Winrock International (USA), E & Co (USA) etc. He has been instrumental in setting up a $ 10 million venture capital fund for renewable energy projects. An MOU was therefore signed in 2000 between Winrock International, NARI and United Western Bank to run this fund. In 2001, Dr. Rajvanshi received the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Award for the use of science and technology in rural development. He is probably the only I.I.T. graduate to be so honored. This is one of the most well known awards in India for rural development. In 1998 Dr. Rajvanshi was inducted in the prestigious U.S. based Solar Hall of Fame. He is the second Indian to be so inducted.

Dr. Rajvanshi sits on boards of two major companies (Kay Iron and Pulp and Rajaram Solvex Ltd.) in Maharashtra which are involved in renewable energy business.

Dr. Rajvanshi has lectured at many universities in U.S.A and India. Recently (in July 2002) he was honored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Florida, Gainesville by inviting him to give the inaugural lecture of the Charles V and Bertha C Perill Lecture Series on Sustainable Development. He has 90 publications, some of them in prestigious journals, to his credit, five patents and two chapters in books. He has chaired many sessions at national and international conferences. His work has been carried extensively both in print and electronic media. Besides his engineering work he is also involved in studies of consciousness and is presently writing a book entitled "Nature of Human Thought" in which he is making an attempt to synthesize the ancient Indian Yogic thought with modern cosmology and brain research.

Bajaj Award ceremony photographs

Bajaj Award speech of Dr. Rajvanshi