Majority of laboured workforce in our country is associated with farming and its allied activities. Though our government provides economical subsidiaries and help to the agricultural people, their safety in use of agricultural machinery and improvement of productivity of the manual labour needs more prioritisation.

Jute farming supports millions of farmers and their families and is only second in terms of its use and variety, after cotton. A natural and cheaply available fibre, jute is completely biodegradable. The high tensile strength of jute had made it the most commonly used material for bulk packing purposes as your gunny bag.

The jute fibre is spun into yarn on a spinning machine that uses bobbins to collect the yarn. These bobbins are placed within flyers and reciprocate to facilitate the winding process. Besides winding the yarn, these flyers provide the required tension to the yarn.

Prof. H. Hirani of Department of Mechanical Engineering invented a new design of the jute spinning machine flyer to reduce the risk for the operator. Their design suggests a new geometry for the lateral extension in a flyer; such that due the spinning movement and tension created, the yarn automatically slides towards the inner section of the flyer. The design can be operated at higher speeds providing extra strength to the yarn. It is also advantageous economically to use this geometry because the deformation of the flyer is reduced whereby increasing its usage life. Problems associated with the hairiness of the yarn are minimised and the flyer is labour-health friendly with decreased noise levels.

This invention can form a stepping stone for our economy to increase the productivity of our fast developing nation.

Indian patent application no. 661/MUM/2006 Patent grant no. 234653
Inventors: H Hirani, S S Dani