Innovation Model of Local Tunnel Solar Drier for Small Scale Entrepreneurship in Rural India

Abstract

The paper presents the innovation of Shri Madan Lal Deora, a progressive farmer of Pali, district of Rajasthan in India who had established himself as a successful entrepreneur using self made tunnel solar drier. The solar tunnel dryer is a poly house framed structure with UV-stabilized polythene sheet, where products on large scale could be dried under controlled environment. The enterprise consists of different aonla products including juice, squash, candy, powder, pickle, dry aonla, churan tablets, preserve and ladoos. Aonla pulp from moisture content of 80.95 % to safe moisture content 9.0 % can be successfully dried in 2 days at the prevailing conditions in the drier. The enterprise manufactures two types of dry aonla, one is direct drying of green aonla which is used in a number of ayurvedic medicines and traditional drugs and another is the aonla dried after blanching which is used in as eating supplement of betel nut and as a mouth freshener. The farmer produces four types of preserve namely chutney preserve produced by making flakes of fruit ,preserve from big size fruits from improved cultivars, preserve from small size fruits from local cultivars and preserve aonla from which seeds had been removed. All the products are purely organic have high demand in the local and regional market.