Thank you Pratul for bringing the facts to the notice of our netters. I fully agree with Pratul Kalita. We are in the process of doing a project with IITG Design Dept. on Mechanisation of tea garden plucking and pruning activities.
Bidyananda Barkakoty Chairman, North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) Cell : 9435046211 --- On Sun, 18/9/11, Pratul Kalita <pratul_kal...@yahoo.co.in> wrote: From: Pratul Kalita <pratul_kal...@yahoo.co.in> Subject: [NorthEastIndia] Objection against Dr. Pradip Kumar Sarma being named as laureate of the Tech Awards 2011 To: supportachild-as...@yahoogroups.com, friendsofassa...@yahoogroups.com Cc: "assam org" <assam@assamnet.org>, "North East" <northeastin...@yahoogroups.com>, "A.K. Das" <da...@iitg.ernet.in> Date: Sunday, 18 September, 2011, 9:20 PM Dear friends, It has come to our notice from the local media that Dr. Pradip Kumar Sarma has been named as laureate of the Tech Awards 2011. We would like to inform you that the Rickshaw Bank is just an annex of the actual project named “ Dipbahan”. The extensive research project of integrated design of the tricycle rickshaw was carried out by Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. At present Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das is the Head of the Department of Design at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. The new tricycle Rickshaw branded as Dipbahan is his design creation and as a matter of the fact he got his PhD from IITG on his Dipbahan project. The idea of integration of micro finance services with the product (rickshaw) is inbuilt in the project Dipbahan initiative. Apart from providing microfinance to the rickshaw puller, there are various other services associated with the product. All the services were included in the project Dipbahan initiative. Therefore Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das calls it an “integrated design”. Prof. Das has received the award of excellence from the Institute of Urban Transport India on behalf of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati for his Dipbahan project.(http://www.iutindia.org/urban2008.php). Several research papers have been presented in reputed national and international conferences and symposiums on this issue. This is one of the most prestigious projects of Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. Centre for Rural Development is just one of those NGOs who was helping in the implementation the Dipbahan initiative. Here it is worth mentioning that microfinance models like Rickshaw Bank for the cycle rickshaws were tried several times before. But these models resulted in failures. It is the new integrated design of the rickshaw, designed by Prof. Das that had come out as a result of extensive consumer behavior study and hardcore design research, that has transformed the lives of rickshaw pullers in particular and people in general. Here we would like to inform you that Department of Design is selling Dipbahan rickshaws since its inception and more than 15000 Dipbahan rickshaws were sold through the Department of Design IIT Guwahati in the last two years. The Government of Assam, the Government of Tripura and the Government of West Bengal had been very encouraging in taking the project forward. We do appreciate the contribution of the NGOs like Centre for Rural Development in implementing the project but the act of claiming it to be their initiative is not acceptable. Here it is worth mentioning that the brand “Dipbahan” has been derived from Prof. Das’s nick name “Dipan” and “Bahan” means vehicle in Assamese, Hindi and Sanskrit. It has been observed that Dr. Pradip Kumar Sarma changed the spelling of Dipbahan to Deepbahan in some of the rickshaws. Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das being an academician did not intervene the manipulating activities of Dr. Pradip Kumar Sarma, keeping in mind the grater social responsibility. But for us, now it appears to be plagiarism. The information regarding the Dipbahan project is available in the internet. It is quite surprising to us, being reputed organization like Tech Awards, why it was not being properly investigated from their end before conferment of the award? Dr. Pradip Kumar Sharma was a colleague of Prof. AK Das, when he served as consultant at Rastriya Gramin Vikash Nidhi (RGVN) in Guwahati during 1989-91, a NGO promoted by various banks in India for funding development activities. Thus his acquaintance with Dr. Pradip Kumar Sharma is more than two decades. When new rickshaw was released, most of the news item highlighted the achievement of IIT Guwahati and its innovator, Prof. A.K. Das. Dr. Pradip Kumar Sharma always seeking media attention was disappointed and stopped acknowledging Dr. Das as innovator. He tried not to mention even IIT Guwahati, and removed the name Dipbahan being painted at the back of the tricycle rickshaws but this backfired and beneficiaries stopped taking these and rickshaw bank could resume the operation only after they started writing it as Dipbahan. We at IITG promote the institution more than any individual and hence informed him that if he fails to mention IIT Guwahati, we will be compelled to take necessary action on them. Dr. Sharma started to acknowledge IIT Guwahati but never explicitly. Seeing his attitude, we started having our presence in the web and also improved upon the design and licensed to other manufacturer for its propagation through microcredit by developmental agency, commercial banks and also by various state governments. Dr. A.K. Das has introduced more than 15,000 Dipbahan rickshaws in the state of Assam itself with government funding to the poor people of the state under Mukhyamantrir Assam Bikash Yojana in the last ten year. Department involved is Panchayat and Rural Development Department of Government of Assam. Please go for a net search for pnrdassam.nic.in/ and you may request for information regarding this. The department has implemented the project for INR 180.00 million in the last 10 years, and IIT Guwahati received more than INR 1.8 million as royalty from the government. Similarly, West Bengal government had earlier implemented the project. Although Dr. Pradip Kumar Sharma also bid for the supply of the Dipbahan, his NGO was not qualified, since IIT Guwahati allowed him manufacture of Dipbahan only for non-profit purpose. To be frank, his NGO failed even to manufacture these rickshaws as per IIT Guwahati specification due to poor quality of man, machine and quality of products and IIT Guwahati stopped him from using IIT Guwahati name on these substandard quality products that can tarnish the reputation of the institute. We would like to reiterate that micro credit in providing tricycle rickshaw was not the first implemented by Dr. Pradip Kumar Sharma. It was tried out earlier too with existing rickshaw and did not become successful because, for passenger, there was nothing new to motivate them to use rickshaw. Once the same microcredit programme was introduced with the Dipbahan design, it become successful, since passengers liked it, being comfortable, spacious and safe. Still if you need any other confirmation, you can mail it to director of IIT Guwahati Prof. Gautam Barua at his mail id g...@iitg.ernet.in. As I mentioned it earlier, Dipbahan is the flagship project of Department of Design IIT Guwahati, we will not accept Dr. Pradip Kumar Sarma being named as laureate of the Tech Awards 2011. This particular award should go to Dr. Amarandra Kumar Das, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das may be reached in his mobile No: 09954027062. His official e-mail id is: da...@iitg.ernet.in. The details of the Dipbahn project may be found in the official website of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. You can search about Dipbahan in google by giving the keyword : “Dipbahan rickshaw”. For your convenience I am providing you the urls: http://www.iitg.ac.in/design/portfolio/akd/index.html http://www.iitg.ac.in/design/portfolio/akd/dipbahan.html http://www.iitg.ac.in/design/portfolio/akd/dipbahan_plus.html Regards Pratul Chandra Kalita Research Scholar Department of Design Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati Faculty, Assam Institute of Management Guwahati --- On Sun, 18/9/11, Ankur Bora <ankur_bora2...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Ankur Bora <ankur_bora2...@yahoo.com> Subject: [SupportAChild-Assam] Dr Sarma named Tech Awards laureate To: "Support a child" <supportachild-as...@yahoogroups.com>, friendsofassa...@yahoogroups.com Cc: "assam org" <assam@assamnet.org>, "North East" <northeastin...@yahoogroups.com> Date: Sunday, 18 September, 2011, 2:13 AM http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=sep1811/at09 __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (2) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group MARKETPLACE A bad score is 579. 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