Sambalpur: He is a lecturer by profession, but he is always concerned about the plight of the farmers. Recently he is in news for creating a machine that dries paddy very quickly. Meet lecturer-turned-inventor Akshaya Mishra, a resident of Talab village in Sambalpur district. Akshaya Mishra himself belongs to a famer’s family. He grew up seeing problems faced by farmers during the monsoons. He has seen how much pain farmers have to go through to dry their paddy drenched in rain.
When one of his friend’s suffered a huge loss after his harvested paddy got drenched in unseasonal rain, Akshaya he decided to do something about it. He decided that he would try and make a machine that would dry the wet paddy quickly and farmers would not face problem in selling their produce.
Putting his heart and soul into it, he started working on his dream project and succeeded. “The machine’s job is to dry the damp crop, if any. I have used heater, condenser, few discarded parts of mobile phones and circuits. A plastic cartoon has also been used to make the machine,” Akshaya said.
The lecturer by profession also informed that the manufacturing cost of the machine is between Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000. “However, the cost of the machine depends on its size. If someone wants a bigger machine, it can easily be made at an extra cost though. Farmers can make the machine themselves. It can dry crops in three hours. Once the damp crops are dried, farmers would not suffer any loss while selling their produce,” informed Akshaya.
Buoyed by the success of his first project, Akshay said his next project will be a deluxe paddy drying machine. It will cost around Rs 20,000, but it will be useful in drying huge quantities of paddy, he informed. “If the government or any private organisation wants to use my patent, I will readily give it to them and not charge anything for it,” Akshaya claimed.
Akshaya informed that botanist Dibyaraj Beriha assisted him in creating the machine. He also added that a bigger version of his machine will be installed at Bhalukuda village in the coming days.