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AGARTALA: Fifteen-year-old Tripura schoolboy Parinaha Chakraborty has come up with an innovative way of using a windmill to generate electricity that can light up bulbs inside a moving train. Parinaha came up with the idea after travelling on a meter gauge train that did not have electricity, water or toilet facilities -- even though such trains cover distances upto 200 km, often at night. "The conventional energy mechanism is obsolete in these trains," says Parinaha, who travelled with his parents from Agartala to Dharmanagar on the northern end of Tripura last year sitting in one such train in pitch darkness.

That's when he started thinking how to improve the lighting. Last December, he hit upon the solution -- an incredibly simple and effective one -- that involves installing a windmill in front of the train. Using the speed of the train, the windmill produces mechanical energy which can easily be converted into electrical energy that can light up low voltage bulbs inside the train.

"Parinaha's idea can easily be put into practice in any train in any part of the country," says Jayanta Chowdhury, evaluator at the Tripura University Innovative Club which has accredited the idea as a grassroot innovation. "No Indian train moves at less than 60 kilometres per hour and if we install a small windmill right on the front engine, it could generate at least 12 volt of power in each hour that can meet the demand of conventional energy consumption on travel."

Meanwhile, the young innovator, who is a student of Class IX of Shiksha Niketan H S School in Agartala, has got a pat on the back for his innovation from none other than President Pranab Mukherjee who interacted with him during his visit to Tripura. Mukherjee had, after assuming office as President, asked central universities to establish innovation centres which would be breeding grounds for inventive ideas. According to Tripura University vice-chancellor A K Ghosh, their university's Innovative Club has achieved a lot of success, having accredited almost 60 grass root innovations like Parinaha's which are in the process of being registered under the IP Act. Some of the ideas include a method of extracting honey using a wood wheel, a hazardless mosquito repellent made from tulsi, neem and nishinda leaves as well as innovative usage of betel leaves in making bags, shoes and fancy souvenirs.