Visit to Rajkot, TinyTechIndia Plant for Renewable energy

I had been to Rajkot yesterday to meet Shri V K Desi, an entrepreneur, social activist, industrialist above all a Gandhian - all in one. It is better to describe him in his own words thus..

"I am mechanical engineer and law graduate also. I am 65 years young. As I was born in poor farmer's family and as I am influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's life, my heart always burns for poor, oppressed and trodden people. But still I wasted 14 years of my precious young life in doing jobs for vested interest organizations like government, semi government organizations, big cooperatives etc. Then I summoned up all my courage and left the job in 1982 and founded TINYTECH PLANTS and since then I am deeply engrossed in development of small and simple technology for creating and strengthening local economy.

 

During the first few years of my experience, I realized that the entire world is rushing in the dangerous direction of centralizing production, centralizing economic and political powers and more and more exploiting common masses not only in poor countries but also in developed countries. I realized that this rush of the world is going to strike to dead wall. So called development is going to be proved as mirage in the desert to billions of people"

I had the privilege to spend few hours with him along with my friend Sridhar in which he took us to his "Pryog Mandir" which literally means "Temple of Advance Yoga" and showed his apparatus. This is his R&D/production center for renewable energy where he is developing steam engines, solar concentrators, wind mills and so on... I will be writing short articles on what I saw shortly and how that can be applied to support Rural economy and create sustainable employment...