Trichy: Six teams from across the country have started slogging round-the-clock at the National Institute of Technology Trichy (NIT-T) to come up with working prototypes of solutions for effective waste management. The top three among them will be rewarded Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively as cash prize at the end of the Smart India Hardware Hackathon 2018 (SIHH 2018) contest being hosted by NIT-T on Friday.Inaugurating the national event supported by the ministry of human resources development from New Delhi, Union minister Prakash Javadekar called upon the students to provide solutions to the challenges of a digital world. “India has missed the industrial revolution and she cannot afford to miss the digital and artificial intelligence revolutions,” he said. The contest is simultaneously being organised at 10 host centres all over the country for five days under 11 different themes. NIT was selected as the nodal centre for the theme “waste management”, whereas most of the other hosts are IITs. The contest had received more than 5,000 entries out of which 106 have been shortlisted after three rounds of scrutiny.N Ravichandran, commissioner, Trichy Corporation, in his inaugural address placed on record the ruling of the Supreme Court that made waste management the responsibility of every citizen. Congratulating the finalists, he said that several revenue earning projects like biogas-from-waste and plastic degradation of the corporation had been bringing relief to the people. The six teams from different parts of the country which are exhibiting their prototype working models will be evaluated by a panel of experts from institutions and industry.Notable among them are the smart automatic washroom cleaning system for trains by team INTACS. In this model, human waste is converted into manure with the help of anaerobic and aerobic bacteria, thereby keeping the railway tracks clean. Automatic drainage cleaning system by the team LOGISTICS helps clean overflowing drainage by an electronics-based automated system. The smart drainage cleaning system by team ELECTRICAL LEVELERS is an electro mechanical cleaning system along with toxic gas sensors used for sewage cleaning. This machine cleans the unsafe drainage system automatically and saves human life.A self-powered biogas plant with solar tracking by team LOKMANYA is another project that proposes a solar power-assisted biogas plant for extracting clean methane gas from bio waste with expected increase in efficiency up to 10 per cent. A garbage picker machine was developed by team THE GLADIATORS. The machine is based on a mechanical system having a capacity to collect 20–30kg of waste at a time. A smart washbasin proposed by team WATER COPS has features like leakage, blockage and overflow detection as well as water reusable system.

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