Automatic Neera / Toddy Tapping Device

270 times of climbing by a tapper reduced to two climbs- to install the device and remove 90 days later. Productivity multiplies by minimum 18-fold.

Tapping neera/toddy from the coconut trees are doing manually in every coconut cultivating country. The basic procedures are common in all regions such as beating the inflorescence for stimulation, cutting of its apex, collection to a pot. Though neera and its value added products creates 7-8 times more income to the farmers than the income from nut production, tappers have to put in backbreaking effort to tap the neera out from an inflorescence. Most of the trained tappers were discontinued and moved to much easier job. In my state Kerala (a state of India famous for dense coconut cultivation), tappers available only 1% of its requirement. Most of the neera producers quit.

Our patent pending technology is an automatic system with the electrical powered tapping devices and an extraction unit. Once the device is fixed to an inflorescence, as per the program the mechanism inside the device will do beating and cutting of the inflorescence, then the neera oozes out will be collected and transported to the storage via network tubing.

International WIPO Patent (no: PCT/IN/2017/050544) with the Priority date of Indian provisional patent dated 23/11/2016. link given below:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2018096555&recNum=24&maxRec=44&office=%28OF%3AWO%29&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=DP%3A31.05.2018+AND+PCN%3AIN&tab=PCT+Biblio

We got International Patent Search Report with all our 15 claims approved for Novelty, Inventive step and Industrial applicability without any objections. link given below:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1otU0zqIY9eWxLR40hkUA0ai4Xju5Cvkt

Applied for Indian Full patent (no: 201641040063) on 18/11/2017

We could form a team which includes traditional toddy tappers, with the boot-strap fund we could make the proof-of-concept and we could discover much easier techniques of tapping which no one have experimented ever.

Won 8th Idea Day Contest and received grant from Kerala Start-Up Mission.

Won Ankur Project Grant organized by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to develop prototype.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Charles Vijay Varghese
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Charles Vijay Varghese
    Sujith Soman
    Jithin Shaji
    Ninu Lal
    Suresh S
    Basi Vasu
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Charles Vijay is inspired by:
    Hope you all heard about Neera –-- the delicious and nutritious energy drink tapped from the Coconut trees.
    The same Neera will turn to Coco Sugar when it is boiled.
    But, to the surprise of all, the coconut farming sector is on the verge of dying in those places, where it was booming earlier
    One and only reason –---- unavailability of skilled tappers to climb and tap the Neera
    Hello, I am Charles Vijay and this problem was tinkering my mind for the last 10 years and finding a solution has become my passion and obsession
    Finally, last year I left my job to pursue the call of my heart. I have started building on the idea to replace the tappers climbing the tree with an innovative electro-mechanical device
    A tapper has to climb one coconut tree at 3 times a day for a period of 3 months during the productive life of a single inflorescence –--- resulting 270 times of climbing
    It is possible to replace these 270 times of climbing with a single climbing through the installation of this electro mechanical device for Neera extraction and vacuum enabled evacuation
    Currently I have reached final stage of Proto building and trials are being conducted successfully.
    I am sure that the successful launch of this product will witness the rejuvenation and rebuilding of an agriculture sector which is facing extinction. No doubt, this would beneficially impact the lives of millions of farmers and economies of many societies and regions
  • Software used for this entry:
    Catia, AutoCAD
  • Patent status:
    pending