Scientific and technological progress does not occur exclusively in expensive laboratories; it also flourishes among the farmers, workers, and artisans of remote villages. Given the right conditions, rural communities can solve their own agricultural challenges with inexpensive, context-specific solutions. A prime example is the Mangal Turbine, invented by Mangal Singh, a farmer-scientist from the Bundelkhand region of India.
Despite attracting immense praise and strong recommendations for widespread adoption from eminent experts and a special Government of India committee, this immensely useful invention and its creator have been tragically neglected. Mangal Singh is now seventy-nine years old and deeply disappointed that his numerous pleas for help have gone unheeded.
There is an urgent, widely recognized need for innovative farmers to contribute to ecologically protective, cost-reducing, and climate-resilient agriculture. Now is the time to utilize Mangal Singh’s unparalleled expertise to spread his invention, especially since his work significantly reduces the burden of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions in rural areas globally.
Mangal Singh grew up in a farming family in Bhailoni Lodh, a village in the Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh. As a teenager, he watched his fellow farmers become deeply disheartened when they could not secure diesel to lift water from streams to irrigate their fields. This hardship imprinted a crucial idea in his young mind: to innovate a device that could lift water from streams, canals, and small rivers without relying on diesel or electricity. After years of relentless effort, he succeeded. First demonstrated in 1987 when he was forty, the invention was later patented as the "Mangal Water Wheel Turbine Machine" in 1997.
The technology is elegantly simple. It consists of a water wheel firmly mounted on a steel shaft, which is coupled with a gearbox to step up the rotational speed. The output shaft drives a centrifugal pump for lifting water and a pulley for deriving mechanical power to operate various rural machines, such as flour mills, sugarcane crushers, threshers, and oil expellers. The Ministry of Rural Development appointed the Maithani Committee to evaluate the turbine, which concluded that the device is unparalleled in its simplicity and multidimensional utility.
By harnessing the energy of flowing water, it not only irrigates land and increases agricultural income but also provides mechanical power for diverse rural industries. Similarly, a report by IIT-Delhi and the Vigyan Shikhsha Kendra highlighted that the entire system can be easily fabricated in villages using local materials and workmanship, requiring minimal maintenance. B.K. Saha, former Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, also confirmed its extreme cost-effectiveness compared to alternative pumping methods, especially when existing check dams are utilized.
The environmental and economic benefits are staggering. Dr. Jai Shankar Singh estimates that if a single Mangal Turbine operates for eleven hours a day, it saves forty-four liters of diesel daily compared to a standard 25 HP diesel pump. Assuming operation for 190 days a year, one unit saves over 8,000 liters of diesel annually. Over a fifteen-year lifespan, a single turbine can save more than 125,000 liters of diesel, preventing approximately 335 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
These figures only account for water lifting; the carbon footprint reduction increases significantly when the turbine is also used for agro-processing. Recognizing this, Dr. Sarla Gopalan, an Advisor to the Planning Commission, recommended popularizing the turbine after visiting an installation site, calling it an excellent example of energy conservation.
Despite this glowing track record, Mangal Singh was subjected to severe victimization and humiliation instead of receiving the encouragement he richly deserved. The Maithani Committee’s 2011-12 report explicitly noted that Singh was harassed and harmed during the project's implementation. This mistreatment occurred not only during his final sanctioned project with CAPART, a government organization for rural technology, but across all his previous projects as well.
The committee observed that there was no case against Singh, concluding he was targeted simply because he did not please the officials, came from a humble rural background, and worked as an anti-corruption activist. Although he eventually won court cases for modest monetary compensation, he maintains that this hardly addresses the two decades of suffering and the repeated hindrance of his creative work. His health has deteriorated significantly due to this prolonged harassment.
The roadmap for the rapid revival and spread of the Mangal Turbine was clearly laid out by the Maithani Committee, yet these recommendations have been completely ignored for years. The committee advised restoring the half-dozen sites where turbines were previously damaged by vested interests and antisocial elements who opposed the low-cost innovation.
Furthermore, it urged that the turbine be embraced by all relevant government agencies, including the Ministries of Rural Development, Agriculture, Water Resources, and Panchayati Raj, as well as the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and various rural livelihood missions. It is deeply surprising that such clear directives from the government's own committee have been disregarded while Mangal Singh continues to live in neglect.
As a writer, I have campaigned for nearly two decades through articles, booklets, and meetings to secure the spread of his technology. While one of my articles even won an award for environmental reporting, Mangal Singh’s struggles persist. Today, some highly placed individuals approach him merely to appropriate his ideas for narrow, personal gain.
Mangal Singh, however, simply wants the benefits of his life’s work to reach the farmers and villagers, fostering true climate resilience. No more time should be lost in providing him the facilities to install these turbines and train young rural technicians. We must act now to honor his genius and secure a sustainable future for our agricultural communities.
---
Bharat Dogra is the Honorary Convener of the Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, and Man over Machine
Comments