Click to play videoNew Delhi: President A P J Abdul Kalam was his usual chatty self in the company of fellow scientists at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday.
The occasion was the installation of 'Solar Chill' – a cold storage unit that runs on solar energy. The system has the potential to help powerless rural India preserve life-saving vaccines.
The solar refrigerator will ensure that the ‘cold chain’ or low temperature required to keep many vaccines alive is maintained even in areas without power. But the scientist-turned-President seemed little skeptical about it.
“Reliability (of the system) has to be established. Of course, it’s a proven system, but you yourself have to establish it with reference to Solar Chill," Kalam said.
As of date, maintaining the ‘cold chain’ is tough in areas where supply of electricity is erratic. As many countries suffer from power failure, weak links in the ‘cold chain’ result in spoiling of large quantities of vaccines every year.
So, Rajendra Shende of UN Environment Programme came up with this affordable, eco-friendly version of solar cooling unit. His idea was jointly taken up by many international institutes like UNICEF, World Health Organisation and Greenpeace.
Asked what plans does he have now, Shende, who is also the Head of OzonAction Branch of UN Environment Programme, said: “Vaccine is the need of today. We have to save 2 million children, who die every year due to non-availability of right kind of vaccine.”
And then comes the last point, can beer too can be stored? “Why not? The temperature inside is 2 to 8 degree centigrade,” Shende claims.
Solar Chill has been successfully field-tested in Senegal, Indonesia and Cuba. The project has now been submitted for WHO approval. Once it gets the green signal, it can be produced on a large scale, which is also likely to bring down the current price of $2000 per unit.
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