Jugaad

Bharatbhai Patel of Rajkot in Gujarat does this everyday. Serving up to 30 kg of dhoklas to customers, Patel uses a trick that works wonders in making his dhoklas fluffy and tasty. The secret is the digestive Eno which is used to make dhoklas lighter. 

The story of how the Shanti was ‘invented’ is as unusual as the idea itself. Faced with a drought, Jagani, who was then a farmer in Gujarat’s Amreli district, found he couldn’t afford to continue using cattle for tilling. As he toyed with alternatives an idea struck him—why not create a motorcycle powered tiller of his own? Jagani borrowed his friend’s Bullet motorcycle and attached it to the tiller. It worked, and thus was born a new improvised tiller that comes with a multi-purpose plough attachment.The Shanti can sow, weed and plough an acre of land at Rs 9 per acre.

Suraj Bhan is one of the 15-odd fabricators of this vehicle in Todabhim in Dausa district of Rajasthan. Here it’s called the Jugaad, a name inspired, perhaps, by the concept that led to its creation. The Jugaad is made up of a wooden chassis, a locally made engine or a water pump-set attached to the wheels and the steering wheel of a discarded jeep or a truck. Bhan, a former electrician, sources engine parts from Agra and assembles them at his Todabhim workshop. “We sometimes even use a Mahindra engine if it’s going to be used for extra load,” he says. Bhan has been making and selling Jugaads for over 10 years now, and business has been good so far. The Jugaad needs very little maintenance and comes for Rs 65,000 a piece though Bhan says rising input costs have pushed prices up to nearly a lakh per unit now. The Jugaad vehicle, for example, takes advantage of a regulatory loophole where below a certain horsepower a motorised vehicle doesn’t need registration /licence.