Meeting of Participatory Institutions for evaluation of Technical Projects in adopted villages

LHC- 213 IIT Delhi 16th – 17th November July, 2018 SOLAR COCONUT DRIER

Vimal Jyothi Engineering College, Coordinator , Mr. Thomas John 1 Objective of Technology

• The main purpose of this project is to achieve an economical method for continuous drying of agricultural product incooperated with biomass backup heater for drying even in the absence of sunlight. • This technology helps in reducing labour , time, area requirement and cost. It also helps to improve the quality of product. 3 WORK PLAN

• Since the main purpose of this project is human empowerment in villages, we will approach the “Kudumbasree” (Kudumbashree is the women empowerment and poverty eradication program, framed and enforced by the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) of the Government of Kerala), we will demonstrate our machine to them and encourage them to form clusters and buy the machines to start entrepreneurial broom business which could add a great profit to their cluster. • We will also approach many other unemployed village artisans, and encourage them to start clusters by using this simple technology of broom making with the help of this machine.

5 3 Benefits to Villages

• is known for relatively higher proportion of farmers and the people of Eruvessi have being dependency on agriculture and farming as the source of their livelihood. • Coconuts form a major share of the source of income and drying of Copras had been carried out at places distant from Eruvessi. This consumes higher cost owing to transportation charges and is time taking too. • Establishing solar coconut drier in Eruvessi diminishes the transportation charges and dependency on distant located units. This units would encourage installation of similar units in neighbouring panchayaths (, Naduvil, and Alakkode).

5 4 Benefits to Villages

• This unit is capable of avoiding the harmful effects due to direct exposure to solar radiation. • Savings in the area requirement is another beneficial output in this approach. The conventional drying does require a tremendous vast area wherein only 40% of it is required here. • The open sun drying method involving the use of sulphur fumigation issues a threat to the entire human ecosystem. This problem is tackled by the introduction of solar coconut drier.

5 5 Benefits to Villages

• Another advantage is that it does require time duration less than the conventional drying. The later consumes around 5-6 days while this technique requires only 44-56 hours. • A superior quality coconut can be produced from the solar coconut drier since the drier is free from contamination, dust and dirt, damaged by birds and infections by bacteria and fungus. • The farmers can operate this even without any prior idea about the technical aspects.

5 5 Benefits to Institute/College

• Students will have a direct exposure the technologies while doing this project

• It will give an opportunity to our college to serve the society and can be a part of promoting technologies to the villages

• It will generate a sense of social commitment in students

5 6 Timeline of the Project

No. Activity Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4

Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Literature review (reading books, 1 journals and technical reports)

Designing and site 2 selection Material/ 3 Component preparation Model 4 Development Testing and 5 debugging

Verifying and 6 analysing results

Finalizing the 7 Project