Biodata
of Anil K. Rajvanshi
Dr. Anil K
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 environmentally sound sustainable development. Dr. Rajvanshi is
also the trustee and honorary secretary of NARI. He has concentrated his efforts for last
25 years on how to use modern science and technology to achieve environmentally
sound rural development. Dr. Rajvanshi's research has therefore spanned a whole
spectrum of areas affecting the lives of rural population. These have included
among others cooking and lighting, small power generation, water
purification
and effluent treatment through the use of renewable energy in environmentally
sound way.
Dr.
Rajvanshi was born and raised in Lucknow, India. After obtaining B.Tech. and
M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from I.I.T. Kanpur in early 1970’s, Dr.
Rajvanshi went to USA to
pursue a Ph.D. degree in the
University of Florida at Gainesville, U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical
engineering in 1979 with specialization in solar energy and then taught at the
University of Florida for two and half years before returning to
India in 1981 to join NARI. He left a
very lucrative career in U.S.
to come and work for rural development in India. Dr.
Rajvanshi established the energy and sustainable development work at NARI from
scratch to make it nationally and internationally renowned. He has directed its activities in these
areas since 1981.
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 rural
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 and improved liquid fuel 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 low concentration ethanol. According to knowledgeable experts in
the area of lighting, development of NOORIE lantern is the first major
advancement since early 1920s in lantern technology. 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. and other
countries.
In
developing NOORIE lantern, Dr. Rajvanshi become acutely aware of the need for
developing an alternative liquid fuel for kerosene which should be renewable and
home grown. Consequently he and his
team established the pioneering program of production of ethanol from sweet
sorghum in middle 1980's. Sweet
sorghum is an excellent substitute to sugarcane for ethanol production. It produces grain, sweet juice and
excellent fodder simultaneously from the same piece of land. Dr. Rajvanshi and his group established
probably one of the largest
multidisciplinary research program in the world on sweet sorghum for ethanol
production.
It included extensive breeding for higher
yielding varieties, fermentation studies, solar distillation
plant (a
50 l/day distillation plant running completely on solar energy was set up at
NARI campus in 1987), and development of
stoves and
lanterns to
work on low concentration ethanol. These efforts 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 in 1993.
Consequently NARI’s sweet sorghum hybrids have been tested in
Mexico, Zimbabwe,
Thailand, Pakistan, France and Italy. Recently
Nagarjuna Fertilizer and Chemicals Ltd., very major industrial group in
India has taken NARI's sweet
sorghum technology and hence large scale growing of this crop for ethanol
production will be taken up in India. Besides the production of
ethanol, Dr. Rajvanshi and his team also embarked upon the development of
complete technology of producing jaggery and syrup from sweet sorghum. The MADHURA sweet sorghum
syrup is
available in the market. Till today
about 4 tons of it has been sold.
It is a natural plant product and has been found an excellent source of
calcium.
Recently
the Government of India's national program on ethanol has given a boost to the
sweet sorghum project and shows the foresight of NARIs program in this crop.
Consequently large scale plantation of MADHURA sweet sorghum for ethanol
production has taken place all over the country.
The
whole idea behind sweet sorghum development was to give farmers value addition
so that they could earn extra remuneration. Besides sweet sorghum can provide clean
and environmentally sound ethanol fuel to the rural areas. Dr. Rajvanshi's work
on lighting and cooking technologies has led it to be replicated all over the
world. In 2004 Planning Commission had invited Dr. Rajvanshi to present his
work on lighting and cooking and had recommended setting up of a technology
mission on this subject.
The
work on sweet sorghum ethanol production also led to the development of
technology for cleaning the distillery waste. 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 times
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 clean this effluent completely with the help
of a catalyst and solar energy.
Thus the detoxification of
distillery waste
takes place via a photo catalyst. This method has been successfully tested on a
pilot plant set up at NARI campus to treat 100-l/day effluent. Many distilleries have expressed interest in this
technology.
Dr.
Rajvanshi has directed his attention to providing electricity to rural areas.
Consequently he has developed strategies for electrification at taluka level and
village
level. He
is the principal author of national
policy on Energy
Self-Sufficient Talukas. This policy was 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 Development Agency (IREDA),
has provided soft loans to more than 50 biomass based power stations (each of
6-10 MW capacity) in the country.
This is a prime example of Dr. Rajvanshi’s efforts in creating a national
program for producing environmentally sound power from renewable energy biomass
source.
Another
example of need-based research was the 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
tremendous air pollution and production of green house gases. Dr. Rajvanshi and
his team have therefore devised and setup at NARI campus a 500 KWth
loose sugarcane leaves
gasifier
for which they have received a patent.
The gasifier which is totally automatic and is a PLC - based system can
be very useful for providing heat and power for rural businesses.
As
mentioned earlier, 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 and his team have
therefore developed three types of rickshaws. In the improved cycle rickshaw
(IMPRA),
the length of chain has been reduced; there are 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. 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 10-15
km/hr without getting down from his seat. Five MAPRAs were test-operated for one
year on Pune University Campus.
This experiment has elicited tremendous response from other campuses in
the country. Efforts are also
underway to put them at the World Heritage sites in the country. Recently about
two dozen IMPRAs and MAPRAs have been exported to Europe and US. NARIs program on improved and
electric rickshaws which started in 1995 has inspired world wide interest and
effort in this area of human powered transport.
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 auto rickshaws 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. He believes that
electric cycle rickshaws can provide a very environmentally sound rural and
urban transport system for India. This work on rickshaws has
been extensively covered in both print and mass media including BBC, Star News,
Doordarshan etc. Interest has been
generated nationally and internationally by our work on these projects. The work on motor-assisted rickshaw has
also led to the pioneering development of a motor-assisted hand operated wheel
chair for physically
handicapped. The vehicle
christened
MANHARA
(motor assisted NARI handicapped
rickshaw) is really a great boon to increase the mobility of
disabled people. Efforts are on to
commercialize these vehicles.
In
addition to these projects, Dr. Rajvanshi has also concentrated his attention on
how farmers can derive maximum benefit from crops such as safflower.
He has developed the whole plant approach such that all parts of plants are
useful to humans and that the farmers can earn extra income. Thus the safflower crop, besides
producing seed for oil, will also be used to harvest its petals. He has been
instrumental in popularizing safflower petal as herbal tea and has developed a
solar powered
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 efforts mounted by Dr. Rajvanshi has been in the area of use of Internet
for rural applications such as e-commerce and technology transfer. NARI was
probably one of the few rural based organizations to get e-mail connectivity in
1995! Since then NARI has used extensively internet for e-commerce and in
spreading its message. The NARI's website has very high hit rates on Google and
other search engines. Thus NARI has been able to share its expertise and
technology with the rest of the world successfully. This has resulted in
worldwide use of their technologies and has also attracted large number of
interns from all over the world to come for short term internship at
NARI.
The
Central Government and Government of Maharashtra have appointed Dr. Rajvanshi on
many prestigious committees.
Therefore he is or has served on central Government committees like Core
group on Rural technology in the Office
of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, 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 has been advisor
and consultant to International Foundation of Science (Sweden), Winrock International (USA),
E & Co (USA) etc.
In
2001, Dr. Rajvanshi received the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj
Award
for the use of science and technology in rural development from Dr. Manmohan
Singh. 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. He and his team's efforts have resulted in NARI getting the
prestigious Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries
(FICCI) Annual Award
(2001-2002)
for rural development at the hands of Prime Minister Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee.
In 2004 his work on MAPRAs was given the prestigious Energy Globe Award
(in the AIR category). In 2009 his work on low grade ethanol lantern won
for the Institute the prestigious
Globe Award. This
award was given by the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden at a
ceremony in Stockholm.
Dr.
Rajvanshi has lectured at many universities in U.S.A and India.
He regularly gives inspirational lectures to large number of students of
prestigious institutes like IITs, Regional Engineering Colleges etc and has
inspired them to take up rural development as a vocation. 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. In September 2003 he was invited by the
Principal Scientific Advisor to GOI, Dr. R. Chidambaram to address BARC
scientists
on rural development. In 2004 he was invited to give a distinguished lecture
in the College of Engineering at University of Florida on his work at NARI. He was also
invited to give a lecture at MIT, Boston and to address the prestigious IDEAS
competition. In 2006 he was invited to give an Institute lecture at
IIT
Bombay and in March 2007 he delivered a public lecture at the
prestigious Patel Center of Sustainable Solutions in USF, Tampa. In 2007
November he was invited by the UNDP and the Chinese Government to advice
them on the rural energy program. Out of the 5 experts from all over the world
he was the only Indian invited.
He
has 135 publications, some of them in prestigious national and international
journals, seven patents and three
chapters in books. He has chaired
many sessions at national and international conferences and has given keynote
addresses in many of them. His work has been carried extensively both in print
and electronic media.
Besides
his engineering work he is also involved in studies of human consciousness and
has published a book entitled “Nature of Human
Thought”
in which he has made an attempt to synthesize the ancient Indian Yogic thought
with modern cosmology and brain research. He also believes that sustainability,
technology and spirituality go hand in hand and writes
extensively
on these issues. His spiritual writings appear as editorial
articles in Times of India. Recently he has penned his memoirs about his
US student days which has been
published as a book.
June
2009
E-mail:
anilrajvanshi@gmail.com