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
