News and Events
2023-2024

A symposium cum panel discussion on “Strategy to Reduce Environmental and Health Effects of Air Pollution” was held virtually on 16 February 2023, between 3.00-5.00 PM (IST) and mainly focused on the themes like the importance of indoor air quality, health and environmental impact of inefficient burning, strategy for creating awareness about clean combustion, improved cookstoves, challenges for implementation, and benefits to industry etc. The event marked the official launch of this project with guest speakers Dr. Pallavi Pant, Head of Global Health, Health Effects Institute, USA and Mr. Rajendra Tripathi, Head- Education Programmes & Partnerships, British Council, India. The symposium witnessed the active participation from the research scholars of IIT Delhi, faculty of various departments at IIT Delhi, faculty from other institutes of international repute, scientists from national research organisations etc. and received an overwhelmingly positive response from all the participants. The event reinstated the critical importance of improved cooking solutions to rural communities and provided awareness about the activities of British Council to catalyse joint collaborative research between the two countries.

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An awareness campaign was organised by the project consortium on 27 March 2023, at the village Chaupra Maheshwar, Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, India from 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM. Prof. Om Kurmi, the lead applicant from UK had travelled all the way to India to take part in it. Industry and academic collaborators, along with student volunteers from IIT Delhi had actively participated in the village activity. My main objective of this activity was to get familiarized with the selected participants in the village for the proposed case study, acknowledge the support and endeavours by the British Council, address the queries raised by the participants etc. Furthermore, the campaign also focussed on the demonstration of improved cookstove of IITD, introduction and discussion with the project consortium, briefing the role of selected participants in the proposed project, and addressing the queries of participants.

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The IITD cookstove (A) is re-designed to a smaller capacity to meet the requirement of the proposed project. The modified design of the cookstove (B) has been fabricated by the industry partner. During the village campaign, the modified design was displayed to get the feedback of the potential consumers from the rural communities. Based on the feedback received, the final design (C) for the proposed field study has been fabricated in required quantity (30 No.s) by the industry partner. The cookstove has also undergone testing for its thermal performance (efficiency), and emission characterstics by the IITD team. 

The health data of the rural families (lung function test, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, height, body weight etc.) involved in the field study has been collected by the Ph.D. students of IIT Delhi. The objective of this activity is get an initial idea about the impact of prevailing HAP due to traditional biomass cooking (Chulhas). The field work also collected data regarding the daily cooking needs, amount of woody biomass used for cooking, frequency of cooking, other difficulties faced etc.

A one day event was organised in village Chopra Maheshpur, U.P. India, to demonstrate the IITD cookstove and to distribute the IITD stoves to the selected families. The students from IITD had participated in the event and also prepared some traditional dishes with the IITD cookstove to showcase the advantages of IITD cookstove over the traditional biomass stove. Approx. 200 people gathered on that day including the members of 40 rural households and volunteers from the village. The event was a great success in-terms of the active participation of the village people, positive feedback and appreciation from the village officials. 

The project consortium presented British Council Going Global Industry Academia Collaboration progress at Coventry University and received very encouraging feedback. Meeting was attended by Prof Rajasekharan Pillai V N , Vice Chancellor, Somaiya Vidyavihar University , Prof Richard Dashwood , Deputy Vice Chancellor, Coventry University, Prof. Deborah Lycett PhD RD, Prof Derek Renshaw, Prof Dingcheng Zheng, Prof Rosie Kneafsey and project partner Prof. Om Kurmi and Prof. Sudhir Tyagi.