IISc Banglore and Kunigal Visit

We started our immersion from Bangalore. We took evening bus and reached Bangalore on 11th July 2017 in morning. After reaching Bangalore we directly went to India Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. There we met Mr. H. I. Somashekhar who is Technical Officer at Application of Science and Technology for Rural Areas (ASTRA)/ Centre for Sustainable Technologies, IISc Bangalore.

The Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) established as Centre for ASTRA (Application of Science and Technology for Rural Areas) in 1974, is IISc’s inter-disciplinary research and technology development centre for providing sustainable solutions to host of global concerns, primarily dealing with energy, buildings and environment. The Centre’s focus is on promoting Sustainable Technologies tailored to suit local conditions of resource availability and habitation.

Successful examples of CST’s diverse interventions are, Energy Efficient Wood Burning Devices, Biomethanation, Biomass Gasification, Alternative Building Technologies, Green Buildings and BiPV, Water Purification and Defluoridation, Sanitation, Sustainable Biomass for Energy, Forestry, Bioenergy & Climate Change, and Environmental Quality Assurance-Impact Studies.

He shared his insights on sanitation, waste management and waste to value. He told us about Rammed Earth Model of toilets which they developed in IISc. In rammed earth model they use moulds for rapid construction of sanitation facilities.

After meeting with Mr. H.I. Somashekhar, we visited Kunigal to see rammed earth sanitation facilities. Most of the toilets are in good condition but we saw some toilets are being used as store room by the villagers. We also interacted with villagers and some primary school kids and teachers.

Author – Pramod Bhurji, BIRAC SIIP Fellow at Venture Center, Pune