New Delhi-based entrepreneur Vidyut Mohan along with Kevin Kung from the United States, have taken initiatives to assist the country capital in reducing air pollution and preventing carbon emissions. The Air Quality Index (AQI) of New Delhi has slumped to 304, and is now under the ‘very poor’ AQI category. Every year, the capital experiences an air emergency around this time. Several studies conducted to determine the rise in the pollution levels in northern India decide that the traditional practices of stubble burning added majorly to this AQI drop. Designing a machine, which aids in drastically scaling the usage of agricultural waste biomass, the Mohan’s small-scale and low-cost equipment processes agricultural and forest waste into reusable products like fuels and fertilisers. Takachar - taka (translated in English as money) and char (meaning carbon) - was a conceptual enterprise created to produce wealth and livelihood from carbon-based products. Their firm was named winner in the Clean Our Air category, winning EU 1.2 million, at Prince William’s inaugural Earth shot Prize on October 17. Dubbed as the Eco Oscars, the award is granted to people attempting to save the planet. The thought behind Takachar was first introduced as part of Mohan’s master's thesis. He was thoroughly inspired by the potential influence working on agricultural waste would produce in the world. His plan was multidimensional - not just from an environmental viewpoint but to additionally empower and create a rural livelihood for the farming population of the world. During one of his pilots with a village in Uttarakhand in 2013, he felt the influence of this creation. The 30-year-old entrepreneur told the media that not only did the incomes of the farming families increase for the month due to the machine, they were also able to stop forest fires resulting from burning agricultural waste. Kung's PhD thesis from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was related to Mohan's concept, and therefore, the purpose of becoming partners in this journey formed. The firm has been backed by several incubation programmes from India and around the globe. Their grant-based fundings were produced by Social Alpha, the government's NIDHI-PRAYAS programme, ARISE programme by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and more. Takachar is presently working with farmers in Rohtak, Haryana in collaboration with the CII Foundation (CIIF), which has a farmer base in Punjab and Haryana that handles and collects rice straws. Along with this, they are also operating with coconut farmers and coconut oil mills in South India and a local group in Kenya. The Kenyan farmers are utilising one of their earlier prototypes to produce products that are being sold and utilised by more than 5,000 farmers in East Africa. Image Source