The traditional foot-operated Bageshwari charkha, which has had the same design for nine decades, has got a technological revamp now, helping shepherds in the Himalayan region produce fine quality wool at a faster pace.
In the wool-producing regions, such as Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, people have traditionally been using a manual charkha to make yarn from sheep wool. The process has got easier and more efficient now, with the addition of a solar-powered motor and technological innovations. The traditional charkha, which was earlier operated in a strenuous manner, has been transformed for ease of use and better quality yarn.
Traditionally, people in the sheep-rearing areas in the Himalayan hills used hand-operated charkhas to make yarn from sheep wool.
In 1925, Jeet Singh Tangariya of Bor village in Bageshwar, Uttarakhand, modified the hand-operated spinning wheel to a foot-operated one. The spinners found it more convenient to use the pedal-operated charkha.
When Mahatma Gandhi visited Kausani in 1929, Tangariya presented Gandhi with his modified pedal-operated charkha. Impressed, Gandhi is believed to have named it the Bageshwari charkha.
Since then, for nearly 90 years, the same design of Bageshwari charkha has widely been in use – especially in the Garhwal and Kumaon regions of Uttarakhand. Nearly 60,000 families are involved in making yarn from the locally produced sheep wool, which are then used to make clothes and other utilitarian items, such as mats and rugs.
The traditional charkha has a few drawbacks. The bobbin does not get filled uniformly. So the artisans keep changing it, losing time in the process. The thickness of the yarn is also not uniform.
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It was strenuous and physically taxing to operate the charkha. It can be operated only at one speed. Its productivity is low. While the hand-operated spinning wheel could produce only 70 grams of 8-count woollen yarn in eight hours, the pedal-operated charkha could produce 250 grams of 8-count yarn in the same time period.
Though the productivity of the Bageshwari charkha was far better than the previous model, people started to quit spinning as they felt that spinning of wool was not a remunerative livelihood.
After visiting Bageshwar, a team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, has modified the pedal-operated charkha so as to overcome the issues and make it more user-friendly.
The modified Bageshwari wool charkha has a lightweight structure, as the wooden frame has been replaced with steel pipes. It can be easily assembled and dismantled.
It has been fitted with a 75-watt solar panel and a motor. Its foot pedal mechanism has also been retained, so that it can be operated manually, with the additional options of running it on solar power or grid-connected electricity.
In addition, it has a backup battery, a USB charging port and an emergency pedal light.
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The new design is known as the variable speed motorised Bageshwari charkha, as the speed can be adjusted. The motor’s speed can range from 150 to 3,000 rpm, as fine spinning of wool needs a higher rpm. With a knob, the quality of the wool can be adjusted from coarse to fine.
In the modified charkha, the bobbin fills out uniformly, thanks to the reciprocating to and fro motion of the bobbin.
The modification and innovation have been carried out under the RuTAG Crossfyre platform of Manthan – a government initiative. RuTAG Crossfyre is a science and technology driven business platform that focuses on bridging technology gaps at the grassroots level and providing rural solutions using locally available capabilities.
The variable speed motorised Bageshwari charkha can be made at a cost Rs 35,000.
The design team conducted a 5-day training programme, wherein two women spinners from Bageshwar, who participated in the training, used the modified charkha to assess its performance.
The productivity of the charkha measured as yarn spun in a given time, the number of hanks – a measure that indicates the length of the yarn – produced in a given time and the ease of operation were tested. The modified charkha’s performance was found to be better than the traditional one.
The IIT Roorkee team has already given the charkhas to organisations such as Jaipur Rugs in Rajasthan, Himalaya Trust in Bageshwar, Johar Mahila Janjati Utthan Samiti in Dehradun, Badrish Himalaya Janjati Sewa Samiti in Badrinath and Alaknanda Ghaati Shilpi or Aagaas Federation in Pipalkoti, among others.
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The villagers who use the modified charkha have had a significant increase in production and hence their income.
Samples produced using the modified Bageshwari charkha were tested for the yarn quality at the Wool Research Association (WRA) Lab at Thane, Maharashtra. The results are encouraging and the charkha can potentially be used in sheep-rearing regions in the Himalayas, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
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The lead image on top shows an artisan working on the variable speed motorised Bageshwari charkha. (Screengrab from a YouTube video of Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India)
