Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form.
--Watts Humphrey

This process of ideas changing their form must hold true for innovations that are nurtured by the National Innovation Foundation. The Ahmedabad-based NIF, an organisation under the department of science and technology, provides a platform for grassroots innovations by farmers, artisans, engineering students and others.

One such innovation is by Deepak Bharali, 29, who has invented the extra-weft insertion for handloom design. This machine bids a good-bye to the traditional method of inserting weft threads manually by tying knots to make one design. The machine now makes one design in one-third of the time taken by the conventional method.

Bharali, who hails from Kamrup district of Assam, says, “These threads are used to make a variety of designs. Before I made this machine, what used to happen was, just to connect one motif to another, a lot of thread used to get wasted which would make the entire process very cumbersome.”

Weavers are usually not paid well – if at all. That was one of the reasons why Deepak came up with this machine. “I used to try to make something from magnets, remove them from old radio speakers, attach wires of broken umbrellas and bamboo sticks to them. This trial and error took me six years to come up with this machine. And magnets now are a crucial part of my machine.”

To tirelessly work on a model without any expertise and guidance often leads to many difficulties. “I had to face a lot financial problems. I was also tempted to sell my idea, my design but I didn’t. My family has always been very supportive of my experiment and was with me throughout,” says the science graduate from Guwahati University.

Bipin Kumar, the national coordinator of NIF, says, “Our aim is to promote grassroots innovations. We support these innovators financially and also support their business development. We are incubators, we make the innovator an entrepreneur and also give them royalty. We not only help the innovator but also the sector which gets enhanced by such innovations.”

The invention cost Bharali Rs 35 lakh, and half of the expenses were taken care of by NIF.

Such initiatives are also encouraged by professors from IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Guwahati at different levels.

A K Das, head of department of the design department, IIT-Guwahati, says, “We come in at the setting up stage. We add value to these machines through design and technology and make them commercially viable. We facilitate the innovators to make their machines marketable. This extra-weft insertion machine by Deepak will help in enhancing the fabric. It even has scope outside India, we can look at exporting it in Southeast Asia, but the economics of manufacturing it needs to be looked into carefully.”

And it is indeed the economics that often defeats the best intentions of these grassroots innovators.

Abhishek Ranjan, an intern at IIM Ahmedabad who was sent to Assam to study and suggest the prospective marketing model for this machine, says, “The machine is not valued in areas of close proximity because it is made by one of them. Also, people here are not very open to use machines, they still prefer using their hands in making the cloth. They are quite sceptical in allowing machines replace them.

“However, when the long-term use and benefits of the machine were explained to them, they opened up. The use of this machine is going to help them not only reduce time in producing it but also help them earn more money. It has increased productivity up to six times. Such machines have a market in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu -- even Varanasi. Since it is a new machine its profitability cannot be calculated at this stage.”

Talking about its long-term benefits, Ranjan says, “It should boost the weaving sector. This innovation which is a product innovation should lead to process innovation because it cuts down labour. However, only if a major player buys up to 50-60 machines in one go will the innovator make some profit out of it.”

Currently the machine costs around Rs 5,000. A working capital of at least Rs 1 crore will be needed to manufacture many more such machines and target other markets within the country.

Such entrepreneurial ventures need to be supported and developed. Harsh Shrivastava, consultant, planning commission, says, “The commercial value of such products is much lesser compared to its innovative value. Since this machine is brought out in Assam, its potential market is Manipur, because it is a handloom dominated area, so it will generate some demand. But these machines are usually region-centric innovations, so the marketing for such machinery becomes difficult. The innovator will break-even only after five years of continuous bulk production, which may or may not necessarily take place depending on the demographics and the current scenario of particular sector.”

Thus, the challenge for the process of innovation is to not only turn ideas into a manufacturable form but also into a marketable one. That is also the challenge before our policymakers.