Pune Inventor Develops Hygienic, Solar-Powered Sugarcane Juicer

City-Based Inventor, Pradeep Borge Has Created An Automatic Sugarcane Juice Machine That Is Powered By Solar Energy And Ensures Hygiene As Well As Cost Effectiveness

Pune-based inventor Pradeep Borge (28) might not have found academics or his undergraduate course in engineering very stirring, but as he likes to say, his mind “works in more innovative ways outside the classroom”. It was perhaps for this reason that he came up with, and developed, a sugarcane juicer that is fully automatic and runs solely on solar power.

Invited to a conference (second edition of the National Social Innovation Seminar) held in the city last week, for social inventors and entrepreneurs like him, Borge revealed his creation – developed in December 2011 – and announced that he has now begun selling the machine to local juice vendors.

According to him, the machine will not only save money and energy, but will also ensure better hygiene, as it is a closed unit, not unlike an automatic coffee vending machine. “I have made the machine fully automatic, and because it is a closed machine, it will be cleaner than the regular machines. It also has its own filtration system that ensures clean water is used to make ice. The juice will simply come out in a glass, like in a coffee machine,” said Borge.

The machine will also save 50 per cent energy, claims Borge, as well as saving juice sellers a considerable amount of maintenance costs. And to hear him tell it, the machine doesn’t even cost much more than regular sugarcane crushers. “It will cost around Rs 3.5 lakh. I made this product so that sugar cane juice vendors can save energy and money. This machine costs almost the same as the regular machine, but is more efficient in the long run,” he added.

Borge claims to be a prolific innovator, counting up to 78 devices amongst his creations – all of them save energy in some form or the other. However, he has failed to obtain patents for the inventions, as he does not have the money for patent applications, he said. It was the same roadblock that stood in his way when he attempted to study a management course, taking admission in a college

and then quitting, when he could not collect enough money for the fees. He didn’t seem to have taken it too hard, however, and said, “I have completed my BE, but more than in academics, my brain works in other innovative ways.”