Of bald truths & hair-raising facts

Srinjoy Chowdhury in New Delhi

Nov. 4.

Some would call it hare-brained, or perhaps hair-brained, but the science and technology ministry, thinking otherwise, has financed a project that promised 100 per cent cure for baldness within 40 days!

The project was one of the 93 projects supported under the Technopreneur Promotion Programme of the ministry of science and technology, where individuals would be given government funds to work on their ideas.

Some of them were rather good, like the development of a robot for fire-fighting and bomb disposal or a motor-cycle driven sprayer, but many like Mr Harish Kumar Rastogi of Bareilly, who believed he could make bald pates sprout, have failed.

These projects were/are funded by government organisations like the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, headed by Dr RA Mashelkar, and Tifac and the amounts given out were between a few thousand rupees to Rs 5 lakh in installments, after being “evaluated thoroughly” to ascertain whether they were innovative and had commercial potential.

Mr Rastogi’s efforts to have a successful herbal potion was called off after a toxicity test done on animals failed. This, at a time when minoxidil,a hair growth potion, though not a herbal ointment, has been cleared in the USA.

So far, about 25 per cent of the projects, have been successful. This was the first programme which encouraged ordinary people to try out experiments that could become commercially successful.

Many projects clearly show a desire to produce something that would help people, like the development of a disk-brake for rickshaws, a steam-operated stove, which has had some success and a farming machine by using a motor-cycle linked to ploughing equipment.

There have been projects dealing with solar water heaters and low-cost solar cookers and neem oil for wounds, newer pressure cookers and jacks for lifting cars.

But why have a project to invent a new kind of roller-skates especially if government money is involved? The project has failed and even if it hadn’t there would have been patent problems.

Interestingly, two-thirds of the ‘inventors’ are from just five states. Of the 93 inventors, 18 are from Gujarat and 14 from Maharashtra while there are 10 from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.