A team of engineering students from IIT Bombay, NIT Srinagar and Islamic University of Science & Technology (IUST), Awantipora, Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmirhave come forward to solve the problem of ventilator requirement. The team has come up with a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials.

Named as the Ruhdaar ventilator, the project head Zulqarnain, a first-year student of Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, had gone to his hometown Kashmir, when the institute closed due to the pandemic. On getting to know the ground situation as the pandemic progressed, he understood that there were only 97 ventilators in the Kashmir Valley. He sensed that the need was more and that the concern about shortage of ventilators had become a big worry for many people.

Zulqarnain teamed up with his friends P. S Shoib, Asif Shah and ShakarNehvi from IUST, Awantipora and Majid Koul from NIT Srinagar. Taking assistance from the Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IUST, the team has been able to design a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials. While their initial aim was to replicate a tried and tested design, as they began to work on it, they developed their own design of the ventilator.

Commenting about the invention, Zulqarnainsaid, “The prototype costed the team around Rs. 10,000 and that the cost will be much lower, when we go for mass production. While high-end ventilators used in hospitals cost lakhs of rupees, Ruhdaarwill provide necessary functionalities which can provide adequate breathing support necessary to save the life of a critically ill COVID-19 patient at a lower cost.”

Talking about next steps, Zulqarnain said, “The team will now go for medical testing of the prototype. Once it is approved, it will be taken for mass production. The effort is to make it amenable for production by small scale industry. The team will not charge any royalty for the product.”

Taking assistance from the Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IUST, the team has been able to design a low-cost ventilator using locally available materials.