Hyderabad: Little did a farmer from the interiors of Telangana know that his hack to plough his fields would make him popular overnight in his village of roughly 2,000 people.
Bollam Muthayya, 32, hailing from a remote village Charla Gouraram in Nalgonda district, used his old bicycle to make a DIY (do-it-yourself) device to plough his field since he could not afford to hire ploughers.
Hiring ploughers is a common practice in most villages here.
“I have four acres of land, of which I sow cotton seeds in one acre. For that, the field needs to be ploughed at least three times, which would cost Rs 6,000. I don’t have my own ploughing devices, which is why I need to hire workers,” he said.
Muthayya’s inability to pay the hired help pushed him to find a hack. He used a part of his old cycle -- the handle and the front tyre -- and modified it into a plough using a wooden log and ropes.
Muthayya joined the wooden log, attached with sharp iron plates, to the bottom of the tyre. He then tied the layers of rope, in an estimated circumference of the tool, to help pull the device forward.
The farmer doesn’t even own any cattle, which are ideally used to till the field in traditional methods. So, his wife, Renuka, came to the rescue.
Playing the cattle’s role, Renuka helps Muthayya turn the top layer of the soil by pulling the plough using the ropes. At the other end, Muthayya pushes the device, which is the cycle handle, forcing the steel plates at the bottom to remove the soil layer.
Enjoying his “one shot to fame” moment, Muthayya said that villagers visit him while he works to take note of his successful experiment.
“The people we hire to plough the field are not punctual and make us wait. Instead, we decided to do it ourselves. It is physical work, but the little money we are saving is making a difference to us,” Muthayya added.
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