green – The KGP Chronicle

Green Innovation by IITKGP Students Stands Second at NEC Hackathon

Students from IIT Kharagpur have secured 1st Runners-up position at the NEC Hackathon: Environment for developing environment-friendly and revenue-maximizing business applications for the farming community to manage crop residue. Vaishnav Katiyar, Pranav Agarwal, Paras Chaudhary and Shivam Tiwari, final year students from the Dept. of Architecture & Regional Planning have achieved this feat at the PAN India competition organized by NEC Japan and HackerEarth. The event witnessed participation from 1149 teams from all over the country of which 18 teams reached the finale.

The hackathon enabled participants to identify the challenges, a factor of problems, analyze them and develop a solution using technologies such as FIWARE and other open-source platforms. The participants were encouraged to think of a solution on the platform that can solve the current environmental challenges in India. This year’s themes were air pollution and water pollution.

The IIT Kharagpur team which participated under the name ‘BioNet’ proposed a revolutionary platform for the benefit of farmers and to increase the overall production of Biopellets with better supply chain management. They developed an application which will provide a single platform to the farmers and biofuel plant operators to sell agricultural waste (biomass) and to buy biopellets. The user interface was designed in local languages for ease of use. The proposal also took into consideration in-app bidding process for biopellets buyers to ensure maximum revenue generation and profit maximisation for the farmers. The platform could also be used for selling local agricultural products directly to the customers in the near future.

Explaining the concept team member Shivam Tiwari said, “Air pollution in India is caused by fuelwood and biomass burning, burning of crop residue in agriculture fields on a large scale, emission from vehicles and traffic congestion etc. We have built an android application which provides a single platform to the farmers to sell their crop residue directly to bio-pellet plant operators (Govt./ Pvt.) and further the bio-pellets are sold in the open market using in-app bidding process. This will solve the issue of crop residue burning, thus tackling air pollution and building a healthier living environment in India.”

The final round was held online on March 28-29 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The shortlisted participants were invited to submit their prototype on the hackathon website and present their prototypes to NEC through a video conference. The toppers were announced too online video announcements.

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics company, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. NEC has conducted various hackathons aiming at resolving social challenges in India through technology and in continuation to that they conducted this hackathon focussed on ‘Environment’. The event partner was HackerEarth which has been professionally managing hackathons and programming challenges and coding competitions for developers and companies.

IDBI Trusteeship CSR Funding for IIT KGP’s Electric Vehicle

IIT Kharagpur gets CSR Funding from IDBI Trusteeship for Developing Light-Weight Parts for Indigenous Three-Wheeler Electric Vehicles

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IDBI Trusteeship Services Ltd. has given a fillip to IIT Kharagpur’s Deshla electric vehicle project through its Corporate Social Responsibility programme. This funding will be used towards the design and development of aerodynamic body panels and light-weight structures for next-generation electric three-wheelers.

Electric vehicles need to match internal combustion (petrol/diesel/CNG/LPG) engine counterparts in initial cost, performance, reliability, etc. and better them in lower running costs and ease of use if they are to replace conventional vehicles. Revolutionary design changes, such as a drastic reduction in vehicle weight, aerodynamic body panels and indigenous development of relevant technologies e.g. motors, battery management systems, motor controller, battery pack design, etc. are essential to this end.

“Using the CSR contribution of IDBI Trusteeship, our key focus would be on aerodynamic body panel design for three-wheeler vehicles with peak speeds around50 kmph vehicle. We will also experiment on new materials and chassis designs to develop lightweight structures. The combination of these should make the vehicle much more efficient and provide a higher range from the battery pack with better pick-up and peak speeds. We have outlined a two-year proposal for this of which we have received funding for the first phase” said Prof. Vikranth Racherla, project leader and faculty at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur.

“We try to cover the geography of the country strategically for green projects to support India’s goals in reducing its carbon footprint among other CSR projects,” said Swapan Kumar Bagchi, MD & CEO, IDBI Trusteeship Services Ltd. who is also an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. Bagchi had visited IIT Kharagpur in February 2020 to finalize the phase I funding for the project.

The project is expected to involve a large number of students from various departments of the Institute and also interns from other colleges working on various subsystems of electric vehicles. The innovations are expected to be ready in around two years. Participating students over a period of time would develop expertise in various subsystems of electric vehicles. These students are expected to lead electric vehicle development work in industries or become entrepreneurs in this segment once they graduate.

“The Deshla electric vehicle is one of the most successful and timely innovations from IIT Kharagpur, further it is totally based on indigenous technology. Last year the Govt. of India expanded the scope of CSR funding to IITs and other national institutions to promote industry-academia engagements in research and academics. The scope is immense and IIT Kharagpur is reaching out to several PSUs, MNCs and private corporations to support end-to-end research,” said Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean, International Relations who is heading the CSR initiative at IIT Kharagpur.

The Institute through its R&D projects has reached out to large sections of population solving challenges related to malnutrition, health and sanitation, power generation, clean drinking water, environmental sustainability, education, rural development and livelihood, gender equality and women’s empowerment and even national heritage, arts and culture among the others. The Institute’s CSR oriented projects have been conferred national awards and honours as well.

What’s Heating India?

Green-less Urbanization leading to India’s Heat Islands

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An IIT Kharagpur study confirmed recently that the intensity of urban heat islands is positive in most cities (up to 2°C) in all seasons during day and night. The researchers from the Institute’s Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Sciences (CORAL) and Department of Architecture and Regional Planning have found that most big cities of India with population more than one million, have positive heat island intensity during daytime while simultaneously showing an increasing trend in the nighttime urban heat island intensity. The study ‘Anthropogenic forcing exacerbating the urban heat islands in India‘ has been published in the international Elsevier publication Journal of Environmental Management (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.110006) .

The increase in global surface temperature or global warming is a great concern, especially the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomena which is among the major consequences of the alteration of the earth’s surface due to human activities. The relatively warmer temperatures in urban areas compared to their suburban areas has potential health hazards, such as mortality due to high temperatures and heatwaves, and pollution in urban areas, opine the researchers Sarath Raj, Prof. Saikat Kumar Paul, Prof. Arun Chakraborty and Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath.

The key finding in the study is the role of anthropogenic activities in increasing the urban temperature in India. As per a World Bank report, approximately a third of the total population in India (~7% of the total world population) lived in cities in 2018. The trend shows an increase of urbanization by almost 4% in the last decade, meaning people have moved away from rural areas to find work and make a living in the cities. To accommodate the additional needs of this increasing population the cities have witnessed some of the major human activities pertaining to changes in land use and land cover through a decrease in green cover, increase in impervious surface area and infrastructural development. In addition, the UHI situation demands more energy (e.g. fans and air-conditioners) that would trigger greenhouse gas emissions. These have led to modify the temperature of a city, remarks said lead author of the paper Sarath Raj.

“Our study is a detailed and careful analysis of urban heat islands of India which is the difference between urban and surrounding rural land surface temperatures, across all seasons in 44 major cities of India, for the period 2001-2017. For the first time we have found evidence of mean daytime Surface UHI Intensity (SUHII) going up to 2 °C for most cities, as analysed from satellite temperature measurements in monsoon and post-monsoon periods,” said Prof. Arun Chakraborty.

These data are also supported by the analysis of aerosols, night lights, precipitation and vegetation in the study regions. In areas like Kolkata, Pune, Guwahati etc where the urban areas are surrounded by large vegetated areas in suburban regions there is an enhanced cooling effect on surface in suburban areas during day as against cities like Delhi, Jaipur and cities in arid regions.

“Evidence from our study suggests that more green spaces within the city and its boundary could reduce the temperature in the city and its neighbourhood. Conservation and expansion of vegetated areas, and preserving water bodies in and around cities could be an effective strategy to curb the effects of urban heat islands. The construction of green buildings and selection of materials for buildings and other infrastructure such as eco-friendly materials could also prove to be crucial to mitigate the effects of heat islands,” said co-author Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath.

An earlier study published in Scientific Reports journal in 2017 had pointed out the correlation in UHI and the location of the smart cities proposed to be developed. In a global warming context, because the temperature is increasing across the latitudes, the background warming could add even more heat in the urban areas. Therefore, anthropogenic activities that augment the greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric pollution should also be controlled to counter the adverse effects of urban heat islands. Keeping in mind India’s strong commitment towards the Climate Action, despite focus towards urbanization, such studies shall aid the planning and management of urban areas by giving insights about the effects of nature and intensity of development, land cover and land use mix and the structure of future smart city projects.

Earth Day on IIT KGP campus

Vision Prabaho, the eco-conservation-cum- awareness forum of IIT Kharagpur, observed Earth Day 2019 with its program for “Un-nailing Trees”. Volunteers of the group went around the campus armed with pliers to pull out nails, brackets, iron rods, wires and screws from tree trunks.

This was their attempt to prolong the life span of the trees. Each nail or protrusion hammered into trees interrupt the circulation of water, sugars and other valuable nutrients, thereby damaging them. Not surprisingly, the area surrounding the nails or bits of metal become dark and stop growing.

Within an hour, the foreign objects extricated from the barks of trees along the road facing the Tata Sports Complex had filled a whole bag.

Several students on their way back from class asked the volunteers what they were doing. “We use the nails to hang sponsorship ads. Do they need to be pulled out?” asked some of them.

Atanuka Paul, a volunteer of Vision Prabaho said, “We had to explain to them how the metals harm the plants. None of us are really conscious of the harm we are doing with our little actions.”

The movement for ‘un-nailing trees’ has been gathering storm in several cities in the country since 2016. Citizens and civic activists in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru have removed posters and nails from trees in concerted drives. Vision Prabaho hopes to raise awareness on this matter in the IIT Kharagpur campus.

The group has been quite active since it was formed under the aegis of the Technology Students’ Gymkhana last year. Prof. William Kumar Mohanty, President, Technology Students’ Gymkhana, said, “Vision Prabaho has taken up a big responsibility and within a year has been able to influence a lot of people with their zeal.”

The group has also been imparting lessons in eco-conservatism to school children for the past few months. Formed mostly of research scholars, Vision Prabaho plans to teach children how to generate vermicompost from kitchen waste and use it for organic farming. Vision Prabaho has also been campaigning steadfastly against the use of plastic bags on campus. In the coming days, the group hopes to begin a movement against the use of thermocol.