Page:SELECTED ESSAYS of Dr. S. S. KALBAG.pdf/289

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of steel, the cost of dome is almost equal to a normal wall bearing construction. VA plans to work on it. 2) MechBull Tractor – VA was advocating low horse power tractor for small farmers in nineties. Mechbull was developed and tested for many years at VA. It was a work horse for VA. VA alumni Mr.Shindade sold many of them. He improved the design at his own initiative. He installed hydraulic system on Mechbull version.3. In 2004, VA manufactured version 3 for its own use. Now many companies are manufacturing low horse power tractors, hence VA stopped working on its development. 3) Earth Resistivity Meter - The present machine at VA is able to do water prospecting up to 150 feet. Therefore, VA provides service within the constraint of 150ft. VA has sold more than 55 earth resistivity meters so far. Now with the ground water level going below 150ft. and many digital meters available in the market, we have stopped promoting these machines. 4) Reality learning engine VA took a loan of Rs. 17 lacs from CAPART (Council for Advancement of people's Action and Rural Technology) to develop multimedia Compact discs (CDs). We develop CDs for Computer Technician Training Programme, Basic English Programme, MS Office Tutor, Balwadi etc. Mr. Richard Pipe along with Dr. Kalbag developed an authoring tool 'Reality Learning Engine'. Yogesh Kulkarni worked as a Project leader. After untimely death of Dr.Kalbag, priority for VA changed. Work on 'Basic Engineering', 'Basic Electrical and Basic mathematics CDs remained incomplete. Development of CDs was put on the back burner. VA had a loan outstanding of Rs. 10 lacs. All of the revenue went into repaying the loan. For want of suitable project leader and constraint on funds, VA could not continue the work on remaining CDs. Rural Development Through Education System 276