The team collected the awarded from the Hon’ble Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal and Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education, Prof. Anil D Sahasrabudhe.
The award ceremony was held in New Delhi on 24 February 2020. The team received a certificate and a cash prize of Rs.51,000. The team was ranked first in the Land sub-category by presenting an innovative solution/prototype under the theme ‘How to enhance the income of village’. The student team consists of M. Aravind, Shankar Kandasamy, Dhivya S and Kavya M. They were mentored by Chezhiyan S, Assistant Professor/Civil.
The event was organized by All India Council for Technical Education. SRMIST was one of the 6,676 applicants received throughout the country. The team also ranked first in the ‘Land category’ and received a special mention on how their project was a perfect solution for the problem.
The project submitted for the award is “Adopting Bio Reinforcement Techniques to Control Soil Erosion on Bench Terraces and Irrigation Channels”.
Their project adopted bio-reinforcement techniques to control soil erosion on bench terraces and irrigation channels. The shoulder bunds and risers of the bench terraces are severely endangered by soil erosion, so the bench terraces and bunds of the irrigation channels were bio-stabilized by planting Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) densely. To ensure the results scientifically, the specialized In-situ jet erosion test apparatus has been designed and fabricated for conducting erodability test in the field itself. By conducting In-situ jet erosion test periodically at several bio-reinforced sites, it was found that the control of soil erosion by Vetiver bio-reinforcement is increased by 56% in six months and the strength increase was found to be 62% comparatively with the unreinforced soil. This technique will facilitate the farmers in maintaining bench terraces without any financial hurdles.