Making room for solar charkhas

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 23

Ludhiana has given wings to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making solar charkhas (spinning wheels) a reality. Modi had announced to make five crore solar charkhas which would give employment to women who could in turn earn Rs 5-Rs 7,000 per month.

Expressing concern over the decreasing use of khadi and spinning wheel in the country, Modi desired to popularise the charkha which would not only increase the production, but would also save power. 

City-based industrialist Ghanshyam Lotey has come up with a solar charkha. It has been approved by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

“The solar charkha manufactured by us has been approved by the Ministry of MSME. The proposal was to supply 100 solar charkhas every month. We have been asked us to supply 25,000 solar charkhas,” said Lotey.

A charkha has 16 cylinders and can produce 100-125 hanks in a day. It has a solar panel and a battery. The model was developed by a team, including Director of MSME Development Institute, Karnal, Vijay Kumar, added Lotey.

The credit of making the charkha goes to MSME Minister Giriraj Singh, who constituted the team to manufacture charkha during his visit to the city recently.

“It will reduce the effort and increase the earning. The purpose behind developing the charkha is to keep khadi spinning environment friendly,” said Lotey.

In remote and rural areas of the country, where uninterrupted electricity is a distant dream, solar charkhas will help boost the income of the weavers in far-flung areas.

“Once the solar charkha spinning technology is improvised, it can help flourish the traditional spinning into an industry without involving human drudgery. It will also provide employment to more women at the rural level and will improve their earnings manifold,” added Lotey.

At present, only one person can work on a hand driven charkha at a time, but one or more than one solar charkhas can be handled by a single person. This way, solar charkhas will increase the efficiency of a person and will also increase the productivity to meet the increasing demand of khadi.