AddressVIRGO Engg. Works29/85, Theni MainRoad, Usilampatti-625532, Tamil Nadu

Genesis Nagarajan owns a small scalelathe workshop named Virgo Industry. Thefactory has been manufacturingaccessory parts like aspirator, destoner,heat reducer and grinder used in the ricehulling units for the past 17 years. Itoperates from a very small and old rentedhouse. Virgo Industry was founded byNagarajan’s late father who used toprovide support services to the nearbyrice mills. But over the last few years,continuous drought affected not only thefarmers but also all the dependentindustries. Most of the rice mills in thenearby areas have closed down. Thesecircumstances forced the entrepreneur toseek some other avenues for survival.Nagarajan’s close interaction with thepickle manufacturers exposed him to theproblems prevailing in the industry. Someof the local pickle manufacturingcompanies requested him to design anddevelop a system to peel off garlic formaking garlic pickles. Nagarajansuccessfully designed and developed agarlic-peeling machine in 2002 after two

Lemon cutting machine and garlicpeeling machine6

FARM MACHINERY - AGRI PROCESSING NATIONAL THIRD

M. Nagarajan (45) lives at Usilampatti, a small village 40 km away from Madurai in Tamil

Nadu. He has studied up to ninth standard. He is married and has two children. Being the eldest in

the family, he supported the education of his younger brothers and sisters and also got them

married. He is the sole bread-winner of the family. His dream is to develop such machines related

to food processing which are not available in the market. M. Nagarajan has modified a garlic-

peeling machine and a lemon cutting machine significantly. These improved machines address the

two-fold problem of the pickle industry, namely, inefficiency due to low degree of automation and

short supply of labour during peak seasons, which limits the capacity.

years of hard work. Later, he developeda lemon cutting machine as well.

Garlic peeling machine

The garlic peeling machine consists of a 2HP electric motor, blowers, a peelingchamber, inlet, outlet, exhaust pipe anddrives. The peeling chamber has aprovision for garlic inlet and a shaft onwhich the blades are arranged in such amanner that there are six rows and eachrow consists of four blades placed at anequiangular distance of 90 degrees. Theblades are arranged in two consecutiverows. In one row, the blades intersectvertically and horizontally, and in the otherrow, the blades intersect diagonally. Thepeeling chamber is cylindrical and theinternal walls are serrated. The drivesconsist of three shafts and pulleys and aretransmitted with the use of V-belts. Themachine consists of two blowers ofdifferent sizes. A housing, made of a steelsheet, covers the entire mechanism. Themanufacturing cost of a single prototype

(Annexure I, 6)6 18 M. Nagarajan Lemon cutting machine and garlic peeling machine

is Rs.52,000 inclusive of labour charge and otherrunning costs.

How the machine worksThe garlic is fed into the peeling chamber through theinlet chute. Power is transmitted from the two HP motorshafts through V-belts. The pulley, fitted on the shaft,rotates the small blower. Pressurized air from the smallblower removes the excess moisture from the garlicon the way to the peeling chamber. The cloves entering

the peeling chamber are pushed by the pressurized airfrom the big blower to the rotating blade. The rotatingblades hit the garlic cloves towards the serrated wallof the peeling chamber and there these get peeled. Atthe same time, the pressurized air from the big blowerpushes out the dust and the skin of the garlic clovesthrough the exhaust pipe. The peeled garlic cloves fromthe peeling chamber are collected through the outlet

by gravity.

AdvantagesThe machine has the capacity to peel 200 kg of garliccloves/hr. The garlic cloves thus obtained are of uniformsize and can be neatly and conveniently collected andrecovered. Another feature of this machine is that it iseasy to construct, operate, and maintain. The machinehelps to achieve greater productivity, is energy efficientand labour saving and reduces the drudgery in the slowlaborious manual process of peeling garlic. It can alsobe used in other food processing industries apart fromthe pickle industry.

Lemon cutting machine

The InnovationThis innovative machine can continuously cut largequantities of lemon into required shapes and sizes. Themachine includes two fixed hoppers - one conical andanother circular, both having two outlets. When a taperdisc, fitted in the circular hopper rotates, it makes thelemons move forward through a passage one by one.This passage is in the shape of a channel, which hasthe provision of a chain control regulatory mechanismin the centre. This serves as a gripping system andensures the movement of lemons subsequently intothe cutting system. Before the lemon is cut into eightpieces, there is a mechanical regulatory mechanism,which so opens and shuts the inlet chute that the lemonsare cut in sequence. In the cutting chamber, the lemonis placed on the upper side of a multi edged cutter withfour edges facing four directions and fixed in position.

Subsequently, a plunger, which is fitted above, movesvertically to press the lemon to the cutter and the lemonis cut without the shape being destroyed. The lemon iscut into four slices with a single stroke of the plungerand in the next movement there is a diagonal cut thatdivides one entire slice into two. Thus, a total of eightslices come through the outlet.

This machine is capable of cutting lemons ranging insize from 0.75 inches diameter to 2.5 inches diameter

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with the help of a spring loaded mechanism which alsoprovides a better grip on the lemon which ensuresuniformity in cutting. For packaging in smaller

quantities, the lemon has to be cut into smaller pieces(12 to 16 pieces). Changes can be made in the presentmachine to do this as well as to grade the lemons. Thisresults in lower cost of production.

AdvantagesThe slices of fruit produced by using this machine areof a uniform size and can be neatly and convenientlycollected and recovered. Optimized power transmissionensures less consumption of electricity (7-8 units in 8hours of operations). This device is labour saving -only one person is required to operate it. There is aminimal wastage of the lemons in the cutting operationi.e. 100% of the yield is utilized. The machine iscompact and made of stainless steel, which makes theprocess hygienic. The half CAM lever mechanism inthe machine ensures that the lemons are fed to thecutting chamber one by one to avoid cluttering andthis ensures proper cutting of the lemons. The

synchronization of the movement of the four-edgedvertical blade and rotary horizontal blade ensures thatthe lemon is cut right across both the axes and thisensures removal of seeds without any effort. Thisfeature not only saves manpower costs and wastagedue to improper cutting, but also contributes to thequality of pickles (seeds in pickles often cause irritationto the consumer). The cutting capacity of this machineis 160 lemons/ minute or 450 kg per hour. Thisinnovative technology has an edge over two othermanufacturers, who make similar machines, in termsof the low initial investment (Price-Rs.100,000) and lowoperating cost. This machine is also easier to operateand maintain than existing alternatives.

From the social benefit perspective, the technologyoffers a less hazardous process for labourers, usuallywomen, who spend a considerable amount of time incutting the lemon manually to the required shape andsize. They often suffer from blisters on the skin whilehandling lemons as these are highly acidic.

According to Nagarajan, the manufacturing cost of asingle prototype is Rs. 82,000 inclusive of labour chargesand other costs. His selling price is Rs. 95,000.

Recognition from the formal sectorNagarajan finds the whole experience of innovation veryinspiring and feels that this spurs him on to innovatefurther. Contrary to the experiences of most grassrootsinnovators, Nagarajan’s innovations were accepted andappreciated for their commercial value by industrysources. S. Kulwant Singh, (General Manager–Operations), The Food Division of Cavin Kare mentionsthat they purchased two garlic peelers from him andthese are working satisfactorily. They are now planningto purchase the lemon cutting machine for their pickleprocessing unit at Gudur. They believe this will save alot of manual labour and improve hygiene as well.CavinKare is also encouraging and supportingNagarajan’s R&D efforts in other areas of food-processing. Its technical team from Chennai had visitedNagarajan’s small workshop at Uslampathy on quite anumber of occasions. CavinKare is a company which

20 M. Nagarajan Lemon cutting machine and garlic peeling machine

was started with Rs.50,000 and its MD Mr.C.K.Ranganathan was the recipient of this year’s EconomicTimes Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Industry AnalysisPickle manufacturing is a very labour intensive industry.The major reason attributed to this could be theprevailing small scale of the process of preparation ofpickles. Most of the over 500 pickle manufacturersspread across the country, with major concentration inSouth India, operate at either the cottage, small ortiny industry scale with a few exceptions. Theconsumption pattern is also skewed towards SouthIndia. Of late, the export of pickles has witnessed arapid growth primarily due to the increasing demandfrom Indian diaspora around the globe and increasedawareness about Indian cuisine and accompanimentsin Western countries.

The industry is labour intensive. Even a small scalepickle manufacturing unit would on an average employabout 400 women. On the positive side, the industryhas provided significant employment for rural and semi-urban women. However, low automation causesinefficiency and hence, makes processing expensive.Another important feature is the seasonality in picklemanufacturing. The season is during April-June andSeptember to mid- December. It is observed very oftenthat availability of labour becomes the limiting factorfor the industry during the season.

Current StatusThe market research conducted by NIF reveals thatthe pickle industry is very keen to adopt these devicesdeveloped by Nagarajan due to their low initial costand high efficiency. Since this industry is concentratedin South India, Virgo Industry may have some additional

locational advantage over other suppliers. Nagarajanhad already given a few Garlic Peeling Machines fortesting at the consumer end. He was also advised byGIAN on ways to protect the intellectual property rightsof his new improved model. In fact, he also sensed theproblem of his technology being copied by somefabricators in the region, and he stopped the sale of theearlier lemon-cutting machine. He requested NIFthrough its regional collaborator Sustainable- agriculturaland Environmental Voluntary Action (SEVA) to file apatent for these two machines. Now, since both thepatents have been filed by NIF, he is willing to take hisinnovations to market. NIF has also sanctionedNagarajan a sum of Rs. 1,87,000 from the Micro VentureInnovation Fund for the commercialization of the LemonCutting Machine and after successful commercializationRs. 15,000 has been repaid by the innovator as the firstinstalment.

In addition, parallel efforts are being made fortechnology licensing. But the only limiting factor is thecapacity of Virgo Industry which is quite small. It canmanufacture only three lemon- cutting machines or fourto five Garlic Peeling machines a month. Nagarajan hasa small team of five people. Two of them are trained(Industrial Training Institute) and the others are semi-skilled. The challenge is that the innovator recognisesthe constraint and wishes to explore other opportunitiesof scaling up through joint ventures or licensing.

There are several lemon cutting machines and garlicpeeling machines already sold around the world. TheChinese and Korean machines are cheaper than USmachines. But Nagarajan’s machine is more costeffective compared to all Indian and imported machines.There lies his competitive advantage, which mightgenerate greater success for him in future.

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