Ashish Khatri, an amazing Udaipurite whose name is globally recognized for his innovation ‘Banana Tree Peeling Machine’ and who has already been honored with several international and prestigious awards including President Award, Budding Innovation Award etc, has added another feather in his cap. Ashish’s model has been selected for India Innovative Initiative – i3 National Fair which will be held in IIT Delhi, Nalanda Ground on December 3, 2012.

This fair is being organized by Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Agilent Technologies. For this fair, out of thousands of entries nationally, 56 entries were selected from west zone, of which, this was the only one shortlisted from Rajasthan. Thereafter, he represented his model in the regional fair at IIT Mumbai from where he was selected for the national fair in Delhi.

If this project ranks in the best 5 innovative models in the national fair, then Government of India will launch this project on a mass scale in the market.

Talking about his innovation, he said, “Banana is a shrub which fructifies only once. After its fructification a large part of it has to be slashed. Since India is the second largest producer of banana, it also produces an equal amount of waste which adds to 3.5 billion ton. This waste is mostly left open in the dumping grounds and as it decomposes it produces methane gas. UNO recognized that banana waste from whole world contributes to about 10-12 percent of global warming”.

“This machine peels off this 10 mm thick banana stump into 3 layers. The upper layer, which is green in color, is used to make handicrafts, middle layer is used to make silk like fabric and the most inner layer is used to make paper. 21 cm of a thin hair-like strand of the fabric that is produced from the middle layer has the capacity to lift a weight of 1.5 kg making it a biodegradable and potential replacement of plastic”, he added.

His machine is powered by a 2 hp motor. It produces 8 kg of dried layers from 20 kg of raw material in an hour. He has applied for national and international patent of his product.

Ashish is thankful to S M Mathur, TEPP Coordinator in Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and his wife, Manpreet Khatri for their immense support and financial help for the success of the project.

It must also be acknowledged that among all the IAS, IFS and other officers who applied for the Advisory Board of World Wildlife Federation (WWF) in Udaipur Division, Ashish has been selected for the post for his accomplishments.