CORPORATE CITIZEN CLAPS FOR DHARAMBIR KAMBOJ, A FARMER EXTRAORDINAIRE AND A FORMER RICKSHAW PULLER WHO HAS INNOVATED A CORN EXTRACTOR MACHINE THAT PROCESSES THE PRODUCE INTO AN AGRO MILK SUBSTITUTE TO BE USED IN FOOD AND DRINKS

Dharambir Kamboj

The farmer from Haryana’s Damla village cashed onto his creative genius during the Covid-19 lockdown by manufacturing close to two lakh of this extractor machine at 1/10th the cost of available Chinese prototypes. Dharambir’s journey began in 2005 when he trained to extract perfume from rose petals and gradually built his own prototype of an extractor machine. This cost-effective machine helped Dharambir to target domestic and overseas markets in 2009 and by 2012, Dharambir managed to grow his innovation into a small machine manufacturing unit, receiving 21 awards and recognitions for his enterprise. Now, almost a decade later, during the Covid-19 lockdown phase, he re-engineered his extractor machine to process corn into milk. His invention has been recognised by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Villgro Innovations Foundation. In 2014, he was one of President Pranab Mukherjee’s esteem guests at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and stayed at the Presidential home for 20 days along with five other innovators. He has not only empowered himself but has created over 2,000 jobs with his average income increasing to about 100-150 percentage. Although Dharambir’s is a familiar story of grit and determination, he rose from the streets of Delhi when he was a rickshaw puller, he found it difficult to fend for his daughter’s school fees. Add to this, a serious accident forced him to return to his village. Post recovery, Dharambir turned his focus on organic farming and soon realised that there was no way to process his fruit and herb yields. Despite his limited resources, he embarked on his 11-month struggle to design and build the first prototype of a cost-effective multipurpose food processing machine. Inspired by his stint at perfume extraction, during a 2005 tour to Pushkar, Dharambir has not looked back since, directing his efforts in conceiving and manufacturing the unique extractor machine-paving his ‘way’ and willing success for himself and others.

CORPORATE CITIZEN SLAPS THE RESURGENCE OF AIR POLLUTION WITH THE RECENTLY RELEASED SWISS ORGANISATION IQ AIR IN ITS IQAIR AIRVISUAL 2020 WORLD AIR QUALITY REPORT

The report stated India is home to 22 of the top 30 most polluted cities worldwide and that about 37 out of 40 most polluted cities are in South Asia. The report reiterated that while Delhi is one of the most polluted capital cities globally, India ranks third as the most polluted countries in the world. As regards air quality, 32% of cities in India average the US AQI measurement of ‘unhealthy’ that is greater than 55.55 micrograms pollutants per meter cube. India continues to dominate the main parameter of annual PM 2.5 ranking by city. Besides, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan share 42 of the 50 most polluted cities worldwide, as per the report. The major sources of India’s air pollution is due to transportation, burning biomass for cooking, electricity generation, industry, construction, garbage burning, and episodic agricultural burning. The top-most polluted city is China’s Xinjiang followed by nine Indian cities, with Ghaziabad in the second position, followed by other cities such as Bulandshahr, Bisrakh, Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow and Bhiwadi. Only about 1.6% of the South Asian cities met the PM 2.5 target as standardised by the World Health Organization (WHO). Data on the ten most polluted cities on earth was aggregated from over 80,000 data points. With the highest levels of PM 2.5 pollution found in eastern and southern Europe, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Bulgaria taking the lead, a united global effort seems to be the only key to thwart environmental and health risks globally.