Seeding innovation in Karnataka's Challakere

The Hindu

12-05-2025

Known as the 'oil city of Karnataka,' Challakere in Chitradurga is also synonymous with its coarse wool blankets or Challakere kamblis. The local economy has been traditionally dependent on the weaving of these blankets, besides sheep rearing and agriculture.
In 2010, the Indian Institute of Science established its second campus in Challakere. Science and Engineering for Economic Development (SEED), an initiative by IISc's Foundation for Science Innovation and Development (FSID) has been working with the local population for three years now to explore and develop best practices in agriculture and wool and blanket weaving in the region. Apart from its latest initiative, which focuses on STEM education for school students in the region, SEED is now mulling over a start-up incubation centre in Challakere.
Weaving interventions
'SEED looks at certain chosen science areas to work on where we feel that it can make a big difference. To begin with, we have chosen certain things which we thought are mostly relevant for the underprivileged class of the society,' explains Dr. Amitava Pramanik, Head – SEED.
He points out that 40-45% of the population in Challakere is from Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities and are underprivileged. A large part of the population is nomadic and rear sheep.
The weaving activity in the region has significantly declined over the years. In 2009 the government took over 13,000 acres of the grasslands of Challakere to build Science City. Several villagers have alleged that this cut off their access to water and land to graze sheep. Buying fodder proved too expensive resulting in distress sale of the sheep, and this, according to them has been one of the reasons for decline of the local industry.
One of the biggest buyers of the Challakere kambli was the Indian army. However, post 2019 the army reportedly refused to renew the contract.
A declining industry
'When we started looking into the wool tech and design, we undertook a lot of surveys because we wanted to understand the needs of the locals and the nature of their occupations. Our objective was to find out what needed to be done and not necessarily go in with our own agenda. We wanted to evaluate their needs and what science and technology could do for them,' notes Dr. Priyanka Sachan, Project Co-Ordinator -SEED.
After seeing that the locals still resorted to traditional methods of weaving, the SEED team started looking at ways to expose them to newer technologies and make more money out of their sheep.
The sheep reared in Challakere region belong to the Deccani breed which produces coarse wool making it difficult to produce fine quality material out of it.
'India rears 7 million sheep every year. The latest census reveals that the South Indian or Deccani sheep variety dominates the sheep bred in India. Around 65-70% of sheep reared in India is for meat and wool is only a side product,' Sachan explains.
In Challakere too, she notes, this has been the case, and weaving kambli became a tradition as the villagers didn't want to let the wool go waste.
'They don't wait for a certain period to sheer the wool. So, all wool is not of a definite length. It poses a challenge to convert it into something skin friendly. That was why it was mainly used for making kamblis.'
Changing market
Meanwhile, the market changed. Cheaper alternatives, which looked and felt better, emerged. The demand fell and this too, according to Sachan, became a reason for the decline of the industry.
'The army was buying it for ₹1,500 per blanket, which were used as ground insulation for their tents,' Pramanik notes. 'The contract expired around 2019, and they did not renew it because they said the quality did not justify the price. Factory-produced blankets were available at a better quality and cost. That actually triggered our work and research because we thought if we could help this market stay alive and improve over time, that would be a very big win for us in Challakere,' Sachan adds.
As part of introducing processes to the unorganised sector, the SEED team created a mobile processing centre with facilities like electronic sheering for the local weavers and equipped it with small implements to process the wool.
'We started looking at ways by which we could improve the quality of the wool through chemical or mechanical methods, or do other things that can help the overall outcome - for example sorting the wool so that you can create one specific kind of yarn from one specific length of fibre,' Sachan notes.
Value out of waste
Given that the coarse wool sees significant stubble which is rejected as waste, the team has also been researching into developing valuable materials from that scrap. Interestingly, sheep wool and human hair are similar, given how both are made of keratin. This is something that could be tapped into, says Pramanik.
'Human hair has 85% keratin. Sheep wool is similar. We thought if we can extract keratin in a pure form, it could be used to improve hair quality. Kaushik Chatterjee, an IISc professor who works with materials engineering, has been working on converting reject sheep wool into pure keratin and we are looking at prospective buyers who can use it formulations. This may have good potential for earning,' he notes.
Yet another ongoing research involves breaking down the keratin, which is a protein, into amino acids and feeding the essential amino acids back to the sheep which could then potentially produce more milk.
Agricultural initiatives
When the government launched the 'one district one product' scheme with the aim of nudging every state to champion a product, Chitradurga's crop of choice was groundnut. Ragi is also widely cultivated in the region.
'We felt we could intervene in the processing part of these produces. We conducted outreach programmes, seminars and workshops with the local farmers, entrepreneurs and FPOs. We signed MoUs with GKVK and agricultural university of Dharwad and conducted product development workshops on value addition to ragi and groundnut, best practices in cultivation and so on,' says Pramanik.
With the programme planting entrepreneurial ambitions among the locals, workshops on different facets of running a business were also conducted. Making fibre for textile from banana and sisal was yet another initiative. Research into developing mini tractors for small holdings and machines to convert coconut shell into charcoal are also ongoing.
Introducing science
IISc's Challakere campus has been holding an in-house teacher training programme for around 10 years now, where retired professors from the institute train government school teachers from various parts of the country. The training is carried out in the form of experiments. Fifty experiments per syllabus have been designed for each subject including Physics, Chemistry and Biology
'It occurred to us that while there is a programme to train teachers, local schools in Challakere were not benefiting from it. We visited some of the schools in the region and found they had no labs. Unless you demonstrate science, how will one realise the value of it? So, we decided to do it ourselves,' recollects Pramanik.
Around six months ago, the programme kicked off with science experiments designed for students. The teachers however suggested that unless the programme resulted it better school results, parents might not appreciate it. It was then tweaked to include experiments connected to the syllabus of class 8, 9 and 10.
According to Pramanik, it has so far covered around 14 schools and nearly 1,500 students. The team is now looking for more financial assistance to fund the programme.
'We are hoping that as we expand over time it will not be limited to NCERT syllabus and that the teachers will be able to convert this into a sustainable scaled experiment,' says Sachan.
'If that happens and if we get more funding we can also potentially add occupational technology to these demonstrations; For example, demonstrations on how some of the new spinning machines work so that children will have better appreciation and interest in their parents' occupation.'
Start-up incubation
So, what next for SEED in Challakere?
'Start-up incubation in something on the table now,' Sachan reveals. 'Innovation and start-ups are still very much urban. We hope that it will percolate to other regions too, but it does not. You need to be there and do something locally,' adds Pramanik.
It is also important to not use the same yardstick for incubation as in Bengaluru in Challakere, he stresses. 'People's awareness on science and technology is limited and they need handholding. So, we are thinking of something called 'entrepreneurship in residence.' The applicants will be staying there, we will provide them financial assistance and mentorship and they will solve a problem. We are in talks with the Government of Karnataka regarding it,' he says.