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Indians are known for their jugaad, meaning getting things done creatively and cheaply with the least resources possible. And sometimes, these jugaad items are much better than the cheap Chinese products. Have a look.
Cloth pram
There will be a lot of costly prams in the market, and some may even originate from China. But there is a much friendlier and resourceful pram that every Indian rural mother would have used for her kid. It’s a pram made by her saree. The ends of the saree are tied to two poles of the bed or two nearby trees with the centre of the cloth providing enough cushion for a newborn to 1-yr-old kid to easily rest and sleep.
Cheap and friendly vehicles
Such jugaad vehicles are extremely popular in rural parts of north India and is considered the best means of transport on the poor road conditions there. It is made up of wooden planks with jeep parts converting it into a jugaad vehicle. These vehicles are powered by agricultural water pump engine and could cost as less as Rs 50,000. A variant of jugaad vehicle is extremely popular in Tamil Nadu. It is called Meen Body Vandi or a motorized tri-wheeler meant to transport fishes.
Who can forget the Indian Pad Man
Arunachalam Muruganantham or Pad Man invented a machine to produce low-cost sanitary pads. The pads produced by his machine costs as less as one-third of the price of the commercial pads. His machines have fanned out to 23 states in India. His machine costs Rs 65,000, while imported pad-making machine costs Rs 35 million. It was this jugaad that made him an international hero. His innovation or simply jugaad won an award in National Innovation Foundation’s Grassroots Technological Innovations Award at IIT Madras in 2006.
And then there are creative jugaads from Indians
Well, Indians are known for their creativity and jugaad. You would have seen viral pics of Indians using their creativity for comfort. They would use a shirt ironing machine to bake a chappati or make holes in the bottom of a plastic bottle and attach it to a tap to convert it into a shower or convert a CPU into a cabinet.
We Indians can conjure up jugaad at the drop of a hat.