Why Action to Promote Mangal Turbine and Help its Innovator Farmer-Scientist Should Not Be Delayed Any Further | Bharat Dogra

It was over three decades ba1ck , in 1987, that the great potential of Mangal Turbine for helping farmers was first demonstrated by its brilliant innovator and farmer-scientist Mangal Singh. Within a short time this attracted a lot of attention, with many scientists and senior officials visiting the site confirming its great usefulness in lifting water from streams without using either diesel or electricity . Since then this has been confirmed and reconfirmed in official and non-official reports, with added emphasis on the usefulness of Mangal Turbine also for reducing GHG emissions and thereby helping to check climate change.

As a development journalist, I have written on this subject for several years, with the objective of drawing public attention to the great unrealized potential of Mangal Turbine and to emphasize the need for justice and adequate recognition to its Mangal Singh. I visited the operational area to see the turbine in operation, spoke to beneficiary farmers who praised this innovation a lot, studied the opinions of senior officials and scientists on this innovation, spoke to some of them, studied various reports and documentation on the subject.

The conclusion that I could draw on the basis of this effort was that we have adequate expert opinion, including opinion of highly placed officials, to confirm that this device can make a very important contribution in agriculture, irrigation, drinking water, cottage-scale village industry, renewable energy and environment protection including reduction of GHG emissions. This can greatly help farmers and promote rural self-reliance. However due to a number of factors this tremendous potential has not been utilized yet. If this had been utilized, great benefits would have accrued to our farmers and other villagers, to our country and humanity, and a vast reduction of GHG emissions could have been achieved by now with prospects of much more to come. In addition, very unfortunately, great injustice was done in several contexts to Sh. Mangal Singh.

He is now in his early seventies and has suffered a lot. He is also a very tired man. No further time should be lost in doing full justice to him and to give adequate recognition to his great talents and equally great efforts. The government should extend adequate support to him and request him to make use of this to install Mangal Turbines at several suitable sites and to train several hundred technically inclined rural youth from various parts of the country in this so that proper use of his exceptional talents can still be made in the interests of our country and in the wider interests of humanity and environment.

(The writer has received over forty prestigious awards and fellowships for his public-spirited journalism. He has contributed over 8500 articles and over 400 books and booklets on highly relevant issues.)