Aniket and Nachiket are two students from Dr. Kalmadi Shamarao High School, Pune, Maharashtra who have come up with a model from the resources available around, making it easy and cost effective.

Over 1.2 billion people globally have no access to electricity and millions have an unreliable supply. Instead they use dangerous, polluting and expensive kerosene lamps for light. Fumes which are raised from the burning of biomass fuels can cause cataracts and eye infections as well as emitting smoke that is the equivalent to smoking two packets of cigarettes every day.

The students extensively researched how kerosene lamps causes 3%of the world’s CO2 emissions and are a significant source of black carbon, with even more intense local warming impact. Smoke from kerosene lamps causes respiratory problems. Accidental kerosene poisoning has potentially fatal consequences, particularly for children. Using kerosene inside homes can lead to devastating fires and burns.

The model costs less than Rs. 1,000 and the team aims to convert GURU into a compact device which can be used anywhere anytime and by anyone in the community. They hope to get technical help from corporates for refining their model and also to plan marketing strategies.