Timro Mayale

When five diploma-level students of Electrical Engineering were given a challenge to develop a dummy project on papers in the British Council's National Enterprise Challenge, they came up with Eco-Friendly-Filtration-Cum-Drier Plant.

Complicated it may sound, but not for these enterprising students of the Balaju School of Engineering and Technology who in a day's time not only completed the innovative project but also emerged as the contest's winners, beating nine other colleges in the process. They now get to participate in the Regional Enterprise challenge to be held in London, England.

As a part of the British Council's Skills for Employability project in Central and South Asia, the British Council Nepal had organised the first national Enterprise Challenge. And the project's success has surpassed expectations in the form of the Eco-Friendly-Filtration-Cum-Drier Plant.

The student team of Diggaj Regmi (team leader), Kedar Phuyal, Bimal Lamsal, Janak Timilsina and Santosh Dahal under the guidance of their teacher Tej Prakash Sapkota brainstormed the guidelines and the theme of pollution to create the blueprint for the plant.

"We wanted to come up with something unique and innovative," the students say. "We did our best to plan the project. We are delighted at its success."

The project at its simplest can be described as a plant to purify industrial wastes in the form of solid, liquid and gas. The challenge consisted in bringing to use the Reed Bed Plant (“Narkat” in Nepali, found easily on all parts of the country where the soil is fertile), to purify as well as utilise the wastes.

The plant has different chambers and separate purification processes for sewage, waste water and smoke. Each form of pollutant goes through its respective process to finally be let out through the Reed Bed plant which acts as a natural purifier.

At the end of the process, the team claims, not only will the outputs be pure but also ready for reuse as new resources. The aim is to use the industrial smoke, a dangerous air pollutant, for heating and drying purposes without the application of any other energy source. Same is the case with sewage and other solvent waste, which might in the end be turned into reusable resources applying minimum resources.

"This is a low-cost project," the team says, "fit for large industries that excrete all types of wastes as well as small industries that emit only one type of pollutant." The estimated establishment cost for the project is Rs. 150,000. The maximum monthly running cost comes to Rs. 25,000. “Not very expensive for large industries considering the amount of damage they are doing to the environment,” the team says.

The five will soon be leaving for the Regional Challenge to be held from March 9-11 where they will be competing against other winning teams from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and Pakistan. The venue for the challenge will be Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. There, the team will have the opportunity to meet young people from the UK, among them a winning team from the UK's Global Entrepreneurship Week, and young entrepreneurs and fellows from the Prime Minister's Global Fellowship programme.

The students, though confident after their win in Nepal, reveal their anxiety about representing their country in the international arena. "It is a project the students completed in a day," the team teacher said. "When we heard we are to represent the country in UK, we were sceptical of how the project would be received there and if lots of flaws would be found. But every necessary change in the project has been made and I believe our plan now is foolproof."

With help and encouragement coming both from their college and the British Council, the boys are determined to do well at the upcoming challenge. The achievers awards from the Youth Minister and CTEVT has also added to their determination.

"We have been working so hard for this," the team says. "Our project can prove to be a boon in the fight against pollution. It is designed to reduce pollution level of an industry by as much as 85%, and at very affordable cost."

The team's hard work is evident in the model they have come up for the exhibition. The students now wish their project is implemented in the country's industrial sector. When they win at the Regionals, they say, they will come back to Nepal and try to establish their project in the industries. And what if they don't win? “We will still do our best to convince industrial powerhouses to consider our project as an effective means of pollution control,” the team says.

Anup Gurung