Innovation: Made coconut peeling machine, government gave grant of Rs 25 lakh, now opened his own company
The Central Government has recently given a grant of Rs 25 lakh on this invention of Sijoy. Sijoy, who was once a technician, now owns his own company. His business has received incubation support under the ‘Agri-Preneurship Orientation Programme’ of Kerala Agricultural University. Also, last month his startup was selected among the top three startups. KP Sudheer, head of Rafta Agri-Business Incubator, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Kerala Agricultural University, says that there are many other coconut peeling machines available in the market. But, Sijoy’s machine is high-tech and it can peel even the hard shell of coconut.
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Used to work in Saudi Arabia, when returned to India saw the problem of peeling coconut
Sijoy did a ‘Tool and Die Making’ course from ‘Nettur Technical Training Foundation’ (NTTF) and after that, he went to Saudi Arabia to work. There, he worked in a big industry making molds. He returned to India in the year 2005. He saw around him that many people were making their livelihood with the help of coconuts. Some grow coconuts, some sell coconuts. He told The Better India website that people who sell raw coconuts have to put in a lot of hard work to peel it. So, Sijaye researched about this and saw whether there was any machine available to cut or peel the coconut? There were some machines but they were used only for raw coconut.
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Machine built after ten years of hard work
After almost 10 years of research and hard work, Sijoy created a special coconut peeling machine. This machine not only peels a coconut in 40 seconds, but also cuts its light hard peel to the size of one millimeter, which can be fed to animals as fodder. For this, using the knowledge from his training course and his work experience in Saudi Arabia, he first prepared a prototype of the machine. Had filed a patent for his prototype in the year 2015. He received the patent in the year 2017.
After making the machine, started commercial use, partnership with supermarket
Sijoy has registered his business in the name of ‘Kukkos Industries’. He had also partnered with many supermarkets to sell peeled coconuts. He used to buy coconuts from the local people and give the peeled coconuts to the supermarket at the rate of Rs 30. But, after a few months he stopped it. According to him, he wanted that in order to earn more from this machine, it was necessary to improve it further as per the market. After this Sijoy has made some changes in the machine. Now he has installed a 750 watt motor in it so that 60 to 80 coconuts can be peeled in an hour. He says, “There is no commercial model available in the market right now. But once I make all the changes, I will make a few machines available in Thrissur district. For a year, I will observe the working of the machine, fix any problems if there are any, and then prepare a final model which can be sold across the country.”
