Girl dishes out women-friendly utensil aide...!

Hyderabad: Moved by her aunt's serious illness, P Vineela, a Class X student of Rajanna Sircilla district has created a women-friendly utensil supporter machine that helps in lifting huge utensils. Her innovation is now being used in a few government schools in Sircilla.

To ensure students attend school regularly and do not drop out, the state government has implemented the mid-day meal scheme. In most of the schools, the majority of mid-day meals are prepared by women, and they have to cook 50 to 100 kg of rice and other dishes every day.

Regularly moving the heavy cooking utensils from the place where the food is cooked to the place where it is served to children can lead to several health problems. Moreover, draining rice water from large vessels after cooking is really difficult. While draining the rice water, there is always the risk of getting scalded by the hot water. To give relief from such incidents, P Vineela under the guidance of her physical science teacher Thaduri Sampath Kumar worked on the idea of developing the instrument. She received the High Range Book of World Records 2023, School Innovation Challenge Award 2023, South India Science Festival Award 2023, and Intinta Innovator Award in 2023.

Speaking to Hans India, P Vineela, a Class X student of ZPHS Dammannapet, said, “My aunt is a mid-day meal worker. I have seen her struggling with heavy utensils every day. I also visited a few nearby schools and interacted with the mid-day meal organisers and understood the problems they are facing daily. I thought to develop an instrument that will give relief to mid-day meal workers. The material used in making this instrument includes aluminum metal frames, wheels, holed lid, heavy utensils and nails with chains.

Describing about the features of the instrument, she said, “Once the utensil is placed on the machine, by rotating the jockey which is fixed on the top of the machine, the partially holed lid is clamped to the utensil and so by rotating the winch fixed to the machine, it can easily lift the heavy utensil and separate the draining rice water from large utensils without anyone’s help. This machine is equipped with wheels below so that the heavy vessels can be easily moved from the cooking place to the serving place and also the height of machine can be adjusted. As it is made up of aluminum, it has less weight, is foldable and height adjustable so it can be easily carried anywhere and stored in less space. By using this multipurpose utensil supporter which has many features, mid-day meal workers can get relief from chronic pains. Currently, this innovation is in use in a few government schools and we are planning to extend this to other schools across Telangana.”