No need to crack walnuts manually, use Mushtaq’s walnut cracker
Tawqeer Hussain Anantnag:Manually cracking walnuts is a tedious, low output, time consuming and difficult job. The people doing this job felt a need for a machine which could ease the process and save their time and energy. Many attempts were made, but ultimately Almighty chose a young man from an area of this South Kashmir town for the success. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar (28), resident of Dooru-Shahabad, has developed a machine that can crack walnuts and peel the green ones. He has also made a portable climber that can be used to climb trees and poles thus given a new thing for climbing purpose instead of using the traditional ladder. Presently, he is developing a machine for cracking almonds. For his innovation, Mushtaq was recently awarded with the state prize by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil in an impressive function at New Delhi.Born in an economically weak family in Kreeri village of Doru Shahabad area, Mushtaq was studying in 10th class when he lost his father at the age of 18 years. Due to the economic constraints and financial problems he could not continue his studies. He then joined his brother in the family business of walnuts. As a child, Mushtaq was always quiet and reclusive. Apart from the mandatory studies, he invested his time in making wooden toys with which he used to decorate his house and slowly used his skill to develop other things as well. While he was in eighth standard he carved electro-mechanical sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi working on a charkha. This won him a lot of admiration in the entire district. The sculpture was displayed during the National Science Day celebrations at Achabal, Anantnag for which he was awarded Rs 1000 by a voluntary organization. This money was used by him to buy materials for his innovations. Knowing Mushtaq’s creative nature, in 2005, his friend, Zahoor Ahmed Shah took him to Ahmedabad for National Innovation Foundation (NIF’s) third national innovation award function.Mushtaq was intrigued to see and meet so many people from different parts of the country who were not trained or aided, but had solved various problems by their own effort and hard work.On his return, Mushtaq resumed his daily routine, but the thought of doing something useful for the society kept on chasing him. Suddenly one day, while breaking walnuts manually through his hands, an idea struck him. Cracking walnuts manually is a plodding and tedious job with low output. Every day Mushtaq and his brother used to climb trees to bring down walnuts. This job was very difficult for them, and then breaking the shells to bring out kernels was another task which used to exhaust them like anything. “I and my brother used to climb trees everyday, get walnuts and then break them in evening to get kernels. This was a boring and tedious job,” says Mushtaq. He thought of developing a machine that could mechanize this process relieving a person of this drudgery of doing it manually for hours. He discussed the idea with his friend Naseer ul Haq who encouraged him saying that if he (Mushtaq) was able to come up with such a machine, it would be wonderful for all those involved in this work. Motivated, Mushtaq started working on the machine.“Initially, I was not able to make the machine, but with continuous efforts for six months I tasted success,” says the young innovator. The device is a walnut cracking machine that can process dry walnuts of various sizes, shapes and hardness and crack them open without damaging the kernels inside.The major components of the unit consist of a feeding hopper at the top, twin rollers with specific geometries to grip the walnut and deliver impact action, bearing support, a motor with a belt and pulley drive arrangement, related electrical circuits, and a metal flap at an angle of 45 degrees located at the bottom to slide out the cracked walnuts.The walnuts are fed from the top through the feeding hopper made of plywood. They slide down to the two grooved rollers, one of which is powered and the other free to rotate. The gap between the rollers can be adjusted from 0.5 to 2.5 cm depending on the walnut size and shape. This setting can be adjusted by the operator anytime from outside the unit. The shear action of the roller cracks the walnut, which is then channeled down by the angled flap. It then gets deposited in the gunny bag or basket positioned near the exit. The machine can process around 80 kg of walnut per hour and 20 kg of almond per hour. The efficiency of the machine calculated using nylon and aluminum rollers came to be 79.5 per cent and 75.2 per cent respectively.Most of the imported machines are complex units costing more than Rs. 70,000 and not suited to meet the needs of small growers, but the one made by Mushtaq Ahmad is simple as well as affordable.