Activities under core support from Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India

TIDE was awarded the core grant of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in January 2000. The second phase of the core grant for the period 2006-2010 is currently on. TIDE uses the core grant to identify the science and technology needs of rural communities and demonstrates select technologies to the rural communities. Depending on the response, TIDE then looks for specific project funding to disseminate the technology.

Achievements under core grant support

• Developed linkages with grass root level NGOs / SHGs / Govt. agencies working in rural areas and with technology generating institutions. TIDE is now well known among grass root level organizations for its competence in technologies for rural areas, such as household energy and rural industries.
• With the core support TIDE has been able to add water management to its   portfolio. It has developed competence in technologies for sustainable water management in rural, urban and peri-urban areas. 

Major activities carried out under the Core Support Grant

Rainwater Harvesting for Polyhouses: This was an innovative concept where TIDE experimented with the additional feature of harvesting of rainwater incident on the roof of the polyhouse. This would offer water security for the crops cultivated inside the polyhouse. An association with Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, University of Agricultural Science was developed to test the concept, collect data and evolve strategies for replication. In the first instance, rainwater harvesting was done for an existing polyhouse and data collected for cultivation of capsicum. Data showed that for a polyhouse with a roof area of 176 sq. ms, water security could be offered even with an average annual rainfall of 300-350 mm. Replication strategies evolved out of this experiment. TIDE currently has projects where polyhouses are being installed to grow vegetables for catering to the nutrition requirements for school children

Low Capacity Brick Kiln: TIDE pioneered research work in the development of a low capacity brick kiln in association with Gramavidya an NGO with a strong focus on technology. The low capacity brick kiln was developed in response the felt need expressed by brick makers. Conventional brick kilns were very energy intensive and required large amounts of investment. The low capacity brick kiln produced only 12,000 bricks per batch with under 5% rejects. the kiln has been tested with firewood and coal as fuel. The specific fuel consumption is 0.27 kg of firewood per brick fired. The firng time is two days. The cost of the kiln is around Rs 40,000. The Department of Science and Technology has recommended field testing of the technology before recommending its large scale replication. 

Fuel efficient jaggery pan: Jaggery making involves crushing sugarcane to extract the juice, evaporating the juice (with some additives) in large jaggery making stoves to obtain a sugary substance called jaggery. Jaggery making is a rural industry in 10 states in India and several parts of the world. 35% of the 250 million tons of sugarcane produced is crushed for jaggery making and the annual jaggery production in India is 15 million tons. The primary fuel used for evaporating sugarcane is the bagasse (residual biomass) obtained after crushing the sugarcane. 

TIDE had experimented with improving the efficiency of conventional jaggery making stoves for several years. Although the efforts were successful in individual locations, it was very difficult to come up with a replicable design. Alternatively as a fuel saving option, TIDE has recently innovated and successfully field tested the use of finned jaggery making pans that increase the surface area of heat transfer and thus conserve about 100 -150 kg of bagasse per day for a two pan stove with an average unit size of 90 kg/batch capacity.