– Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Chitkara University research students: challenge accepted.

Dr. Madhu Chitkara

A major grouse of sentient intellectuals — including your editors — countrywide  is that despite being endowed with 52,000 undergraduate colleges, 1,338 universities, 45 million students and estimated 2 million “highly qualified” faculty, India  has failed to ideate and commercialize a single global game-changer invention or technology in 78 years since independence. Neither has its showcase academy succeeded in providing solutions for long-standing domestic socio-economic problems — air and water pollution; upgrading slums-ridden, automobiles-choked cities; improving rock-bottom farm and factory productivity; providing affordable housing, upgrading woeful public health and education systems (see https://educationworld.in/heis-must-uplift-host-communities/).

Participating in a panel discussion on this dismal subject at the EW India Higher Education Rankings Awards (EWIHERA) conclave staged in New Delhi in April 2025, Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Co-founder and Pro-Chancellor of the new-age Chitkara University (estb. 2010), ranked India’s #1 private university in Punjab by EducationWorld, accepted the challenge to address the issue of Punjab’s farmers routinely  burning residue stubble of the annual kharif crop to quickly prepare their fields for sowing the winter rabi crop.

The toxic smoke that rises from burnt stubble in rural Punjab (pop. 40 million) — India’s foodgrains breadbasket state — wafts across north India’s major cities, and mixing with automobile and industrial emissions,  generates a heavy cloud of PM 2.5 concentrates in the windless winter months ruining air quality. Last winter Delhi’s AQI (Air Quality Index) averaged between 300-400 against the WHO (World Health Organization) norm of 50. And this winter, Delhi’s AQI has been even worse.

According to Dr. Chitkara, Chitkara University is ranked among Asia’s Top 325 universities by QS and #3 in India for Research Quality by Times Higher Education, the well-reputed London-based global universities ranking firms.  “In our CURIN (Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network) we have established dedicated technology enabling centres for renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and healthcare research centres, and our faculty has registered over 4,000 patents. A good example of our commitment to R&D is exemplified by a project to reduce the pollution fallout of annual stubble burning by Punjab farmers. I am pleased to inform you that our researchers have developed sustainable technologies to convert agricultural stubble into marketable products which will significantly reduce environmental pollution in Delhi and Punjab,” she informed the audience comprising Vice Chancellors and Deans of India’s top-ranked private and public universities at the EWIHERA conclave.

True to her word 18 months later, a team of researchers from CURIN have developed an eco-friendly technology that converts rice straw residue into high-purity silica gel using a sustainable, green chemical process. Known for its inherent non-toxic properties, chemically stable and absorbing moisture, silica gel has wide-ranging industrial applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, electronics, food packaging, and storage businesses.

Hitherto, extracting silica gel from rice straw has been chemically intensive, technically complex, and economically unviable. But an AgriSil team comprising faculty and students from CURIN led by Prof. Rakesh Goyal and research scholar Maninderjeet Singh claims to have devised a cost-effective methodology to sustainably and economically convert rice stubble into pure, readily marketable silica gel.

“A team of seven professors aided by 10-15 students have been working on this project for two years. During this time, we have developed a patented energy efficient technology process to extract silica gel from wet, damp and dry rice straw. However, this project will  require another 15-18 months for completion because we are still working on developing a processing machine that will be installed in farm fields for converting stubble into silica gel on farmers’ doorsteps. Every participating paddy (rice) farmer will be given a receipt for the straw weight converted into silica gel. Subsequently the receipt will be converted into cash by our service delivery partner, who will market the end product,” says Prof. Goyal.

Team AgriSil is optimistic about a win-win outcome of this project. Punjab’s rice and wheat farmers will benefit by enhancement of 10-20 percent of their crop income; the citizenry of the northern plains will benefit by way of substantial improvement in AQI as stubble burning reportedly contributes 30-40 percent to the PM 2.5 concentrates that choke Delhi and several other north Indian cities every winter. Moreover, Chitkara University’s industry partner (yet to be finalized) will turn a profit by marketing the silica gel produced by CURIN technology.

Although ex facie the Chitkara University-AgriSil project to convert rice stubble waste into marketable silica gel offers great promise, the history of Indian industry is that numerous high-potential lab projects founder on the rock of implementation. In this context, it is pertinent to note that until recently Beijing, the national capital of neighbouring China, routinely suffered AQI exceeding 500-600. This winter Beijing’s AQI averages 85-90. Where there is will there is a way…