IIT Kanpur launches soil-testing device Bhu-Parikshak in market

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has launched its soil-testing device named as Bhu-Parikshak developed last year as a product in the market. The product has now been made ready for use by the general public, and has been launched in the market at a launch event on May 26, 2022 at the auditorium of IIT Kanpur’s Start-up Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC) in Noida.

The device developed by a team led by Professor Jayant Kumar Singh from the Department of Chemical Engineering, and consisting Pallav Prince, Ashar Ahmad, Yashasvi Khemani and Mohd Aamir Khan, is licensed to an agritech company, AgroNxt Services.

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“This first-of-its-kind novel device is capable of detecting soil health in just 90 seconds through an embedded mobile application. It would assist individual farmers in obtaining soil health parameters of agricultural fields with recommended doses of fertilizers without having to go to a laboratory,” an official statement from IIT Kanpur said.

The device is based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy technology that provides real-time soil analysis reports on smartphones with an embedded mobile application named Bhu-Parikshak available on Google Play Store, the statement added.

Product launch

Live demonstration of the soil testing device was done during the event, by instantly detecting six important soil parameters namely - Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Organic Carbon, Clay contents and cation ion exchange capacity, with the use of only 5 grams of dry soil sample. Soil health report was also generated, which can be easily accessed on the Bhu Parikshak mobile application with a unique ID.

To enhance the availability of Bhu-Parikshak to wider markets, AgroNxt signed an agreement with Nova Agritech Limited and Nutrikosh India Private Limited. Rajat Vardhan, Director and Founder of AgroNxt, added that he is eagerly looking forward to the expansion of its reach across the country.

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The event’s chief guest Professor Ankush Sharma, Co-PIC, SIIC IIT Kanpur, termed the soil testing device a game-changer in the market, as the existing solutions for soil testing are manual and time-consuming, whereas the current product provides real-time information about the soil health in just 90 seconds.

Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director IIT Kanpur, said, “Our primary objective with the Bhu-Parikshak device is to offer our farmers relief in terms of testing the health of their soil. This is a task that is usually very tedious for them as they have to rely on laboratories far away from home. We’re proud to share that now that the device is launched as a product, it’ll be a great boon for our farmers in lessening the hassle of testing their soil. I congratulate the team again led by Singh and the AgroNxt team for making the device ready for the market in a short period of time.”