Confident of harnessing water resources to give residents relief from power cuts
Frequent power cuts have sparked the will in a school student to develop a small-scale power project. Zubair Ahmad Kumar, a resident of Drabgam village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, is a Class IX student of the Government Higher Secondary School in the village.
He has been working for the past two years to develop the working model of a hydroelectric power project at his village so that he can generate electricity for his village. He is confident of harnessing water resources of his village and give village residents a sigh of relief from regular power cuts.
Zubair has constructed the model of a hydroelectric power project on a stream near his school with an aluminum sheet being used as channels for a wooden turbine that rotates on wood logs with bearings. While demonstrating the project’s model, Zubair generated 200 watts of power.
Besides the model of electricity generation, this teenager has worked on a number of models, including a moving wash basin, a spade with a lid for digging sand that reduces wastage, a folding ladder for apple harvesting, a fan for blacksmiths that runs on electricity as well as on coke and a ‘samovar’ (pot to prepare tea) that works on electricity as well as on coke.
Zubair said he had been making models of various instruments for the past five years. “I have made a moving wash basin (a combo of ‘taesh naer’ in Kashmir) that can be operated by a single person and save time on marriage parties,” he said. He added that two persons were otherwise needed to operate a ‘taesh’ and a ‘naer’ separately.
Zubair said he wanted to generate at least 500 kilowatts of electricity by constructing a hydroelectric power project at his village so that half of his village could be saved from frequent power outages.
“I have started work on developing a real power project and purchased a dynamo and other apparatus,” he said. He added that he had approached the authorities concerned, who assured help. “Pulwama Deputy Commissioner Niraj Kumar promised to help me out from his salary,” he said.
Zubair’s teacher Gowhar Ahmad said a Hyderabad-based science society had approached him to construct three working samples of spades after the model was approved and he was given a cheque for Rs 10,000.
“Some of his models have been submitted to the gyan cell of the University of Kashmir and are under consideration,” he said. Zubair’s neighbour Bilal Ahmad said the boy was gifted with extraordinary intelligence and urged the authorities to nurture his talent.
The conflict in the state did not leave him untouched. Zubair had made the model of a gun, due to which security forces detained him many times on the charge of providing arms to militants.
“I lack resources, but have always desisted from activities that can cost me the five years of intensive hard work,” Zubair said. He added that since his detention, he had given up the idea of making anything like arms.
