BULLOCKS will soon be helping Indian villagers purify their drinking water instead of pulling ploughs. The animals will supply energy for a desalination system that will provide clean water to villages with no electricity.
The first system is due to begin operation within the next couple of months in Moti Chirai, a remote village in the Kutch region of Gujarat near the border with Pakistan. A pair of bullocks will trudge slowly in circles, powering a pump capable of purifying as much as 3000 litres of otherwise undrinkable salty water a day – enough for a thousand villagers.
The device the…
