By Aparajita Gupta, IANS,
Kolkata : Kanishk Sinha, 30, and his wife Lipika, 25, chose to do something different from looking for jobs – they invented a fuel-less environment-friendly auto engine.
“This engine is switched on by a chemical reaction between zinc and oxygen; hence it is pollution-free. This technology also increases the durability of the engine,” Kanishk Sinha, chairman of the Jasper Motor Vehicle company, told IANS.
He said the engine can be used in cars as well as other vehicles like three-wheelers, apart from water pumps.
“A water pump can run for five years without any interruption on this engine and a four-wheeler car can run 450,000 km,” said Sinha, a native of Bihar.
The young couple established the company registered in the US five years ago with Rs.1 billion (Rs.100 crore) raised from non-resident Indians. They got the engine patented with BigPatents India, a body supported by the Ford Foundation.
All Jasper engines are manufactured in Washington as the company does not have a manufacturing facility in India. “We source all our engines from the US,” Sinha said, but added he was looking for land in Bihar and West Bengal to set up a manufacturing unit in India.
The couple has approached Kshiti Goswami, West Bengal’s public works department minister, for land in Bardhaman district.
“They came to me. I am aware of their project. But if they are seeking land in Bardhaman they have to speak to the Bardhaman Development Authority. It’s not within our purview to provide them with land,” Goswami told IANS.
Sinha said he will soon be speaking to the Bardhaman Development Authority, which has been set up to ensure the planned and sustainable development of the district.
Currently, Jasper has set up a 28-dealer network in Rajasthan, Bihar and New Delhi, and plans to add 15 more dealers in the next few months. It has begun testing waters in West Bengal and Assam.
The company manufactures 15,000 engines a month, but Sinha is not planning to increase production immediately. “We will be focussing more on marketing now,” he said.
As part of the strategy to promote sales, the company will not tinker with the Rs.35,000 price tag.
The couple is also planning to file a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court seeking permission to get the engine fitted on to the city’s auto-rickshaws.
The decision follows a spate of violent protests by three-wheeler owners and drivers in the city as the High Court issued a directive banning two-stroke polluting auto-rickshaws.
(Aparajita Gupta can be contacted at [email protected])