The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : The unlettered, ingenious inventor

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Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

The unlettered, ingenious inventor

Swathi.V

Pola Pitchaiah, an illiterate tribal, invented a machine 18 years ago that catapulted the production of brooms ten-fold

— Photo: Nagara Gopal

Trendsetter: Pola Pichaiah from Erukala community making broomsticks with the help of an innovative machine.

HYDERABAD: Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the Internet, shares a common attribute with Pola Pitchaiah, an illiterate man living in the Nancharamma Basti of L.B.Nagar. Both have not claimed patent rights for their findings. If the former’s invention transformed the world, the latter’s did the same for a few hundred very poor households in Andhra Pradesh.

Born in the ‘Kunche Erukala’ tribe which lives off the brooms it produces, Pitchaiah invented a machine 18 years ago that catapulted the production capacity of brooms per head by tenfold. Instead of the earlier 30 brooms per head per day, the output has now risen to 300 brooms, thanks to the initiative by Pitchaiah.

Painstaking procedure

Teams from the Kunche Erukala community bring truckloads of palm leaves and shred them into fine fibre. The shredding would be done by a wooden block with a number of nails driven into it, which was a painstaking and lengthy procedure.

“After shredding from morning to evening, the worker would end up with marginal output but severe muscle pains. The community had no other livelihood option as the Government discouraged bird hunting and pig-rearing,” Pitchaiah recalls. The demand for brooms, however, was huge. That was when Pitchaiah mulled over improving the production with least effort.

Breakthrough

“Initially, I took a marrimoddu (phycus block) and made it hollow inside. I tried driving the nails from inside out, but failed as the block was too thick for that. Then I tried driving the nail’s head from outside and succeeded after much effort. After fixing the contrivance with a motor, and running it for the first time, I knew that I achieved it,” Pitchaiah says triumphantly.

Later, he found the plastic joint of the water pipelines much more convenient than the phycus block, as plastic is more conducive to nails, and much lighter. The device has since become a household appliance in hundreds of ‘Kunche Erukala’ hovels. The brooms now have a market in Mumbai too.

This is not the first instance of Pitchaiah’s ingeniousness. He says he earlier devised a rope-spinning machine and a net that could catch water birds in hundreds. A plan to improve over the shredding machine is also under way.

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