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Sankul
Currently ongoing Projects at Sankul
Currently ongoing Projects at Sankul
With over 160,000 annual road fatalities and an economic toll from air pollution reaching 9.5% of GDP by 2025, India urgently needs to transition away from unsustainable, car-centric designs. This infrastructure disadvantages the majority of residents who rely on walking, cycling, and public transport. As a democratic republic, India must dismantle "transport-related social exclusion." Energy security and energy independence are important with India importing over 85% of its crude oil requirements as of early 2026.
To ensure a true "Right to Travel," India must pivot toward a people-centric, multi-modal, shared mobility model that prioritizes accessibility over private ownership. A solar micro-mobility cooperative (μ co-op) is a community-driven business model that addresses "last-mile" connectivity. Centered around the bicycle—the most efficient personal active transport—the μ co-op fosters "conviviality" —the joy of working together on a shared passion. This social atmosphere provides the "peer power" needed to help members break free from the ‘comfort doom loop’ of private car dependency and normalize biking. It offers tool sharing, affordable second-hand parts, and professional advice. The μ co-op offers multiple solar charging points for bikes, free to its members. It also offers a solar hub for charging EVs (2-wheelers and 4 wheelers) at a low cost. Membership cost of just ₹ 10 per day along with a one time share purchase of ₹2000 would entitle you to own a personal, regular bicycle free of cost in two years, while you can avail numerous other benefits of the μ co-op.
A Vision for India: The ‘TSU μ Co-op’ is a pilot for a national movement. The current plan focuses on launching the TSU μ Co-op on similar lines as other pilot μ co-ops that are being set up in other educational campuses (TSU, BVM,...). The vision is to set up μ co-ops throughout the country. The μ co-ops hold the potential to lower India’s current 85% crude oil import dependency in a big way. If we can transition just 10% of India's vehicle owners to approximately 6 lakh similar cooperatives, the national fuel import savings would reach ₹1.3 lakh crore per year. This surpasses the 2026 turnover of giants like Amul or Saraswat Bank. This will not only address India’s energy security and energy independence concerns but also United Nations’ triple planetary crisis.
Credit: Peter Dazeley Getty Images
Bharat Clock ->
Smaller Dials showing the Units place of Ghati and Pala.
Ghati Hand shows the position of Sun; Also shows 8 Pahaars.
Reads Aparaahna (Afternoon)
Ghati:Pala:Vipala = 21 : 37 : 47
Ask any Indian child to count, at a natural pace, upto 10, in her/his own mother tongue,; the time lapsed would likely be 10 vipalas and not 10 seconds! Note that 10 vipalas equals 4 seconds. The longer time period taken (slower count) for a second, a minute or an hour to lapse, can be attributed to the coarse division of the day to suit a 12-hour sundial, that was used by the Egyptians in Mesopotamia centuries back (1500 BC).
In South Asia, since the period of the Indus Valley Civilisation, Ghatikas (water clocks) were used to keep time of the day. It became so popular in all religions, castes and communities, that even the sun-dials were marked in terms of Ghatis - the unit of the water clock. Unfortunately, due to invasion and colonisation in the last millennium, India shifted from the 60-Ghati clock to the 12-hour clock.
The objective, here, is to make the ancient '60 Ghatika' clock popular, once again, in India, due to its numerous advantages. Currently its usage is limited to Astronomers and Astrologers. On the other hand the '24-hour' clock has been put to use, worldwide, for over centuries, for reasons that are no longer relevant nor valid. The revolutionary transition from the 'hour : minute : second' clock to the 'ghati : pala ; vipala' clock has great ramifications: for instance, 1 'vipala' = 0.4 'seconds'; the 'red' vipala' hand, and as a result, the 'pala' and 'ghati' hands would rotate/ count 2.5 times faster in comparison to the '24 hour' clock.
Here, we propose to make the revolutionary transition, from the '24-hour' clock to the '60-ghati' clock, easy and convenient for the general public. We suggest project execution in two stages. Initially, in Phase 1 we propose resetting of the '60-ghati' clock to zero, everyday, at 6:00 AM, rather than at sunrise. This means that all the Ghati clocks throughout India would read the same time, at all times. We call this the 'Phase 1 Bharat Clock'. The constraint would also make the design of a Phase 1 Bharat clock and its manufacture as a quartz clockwork mechanism, an easier exercise.
In Phase 2, the Bharat clock could be redesigned to reset as per the local sunrise time at any particular geographical location. Note the 'Phase 2 Bharat Clock' is already available in the form of an Android app- see Alok Mandavgane's App on Google Play Store : 'Hindu Calendar'. But to make the '60-ghati' clock more popular, for day to day usage, what we need is a '60-ghati wall-clock'.
The design of the Phase 1 Bharat clock, here, is the first such attempt.
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