Unlike most retirees, Sharad Ashani from Maharashtra did not intend to confine to his home nor did he plan to travel, or relax. Instead, post retirement, he thought it was time to give back to society. Sharad Ashani, a retired general manager at the Crompton Greaves designed ‘anti-suicide fan rods’. The rod is suicide-proof, according to Sharad, which means that if someone tries to hang themselves to death, the ceiling fan will not let it.
Data from the National Crime Record Bureau disturbed him immensely. The data shows that each year about 1.3 lakh people commit suicide.
“Model Nafisa Joseph’s suicide in 2004 acted as a big trigger. My research into the suicide rates ended in the conclusion that out of 1.3 lakh people who commit suicide, 60,000 do so by hanging themselves from the ceiling fan. So I began working on something that could save lives even when people try to hang themselves from the ceiling fan.” says the sixty six-year old Sharad Ashani
Thus, Sharad Ashani ended up making a lifesaving product Anti Suicide Fan Rod, a product, liked by many including IIT deans and professors.
This Mumbai man developed fan Down Rod (pipe) which can be used in place of an ordinary Fan Down Rod for hanging the fan to save life. Unlike ordinary Fan Down Rod, the Smart Fan Rod has two parts, upper and lower, which are held together with the help of a spring mechanism. Any attempt to get hanged from fan fitted with Smart Fan Rod will get foiled, as due to excess load on the fan, the Smart Fan Rod gets separated from its joint and the load gets transferred on the spring, which expands and a person trying to hang from fan will land on the ground safely and life will be saved. As the spring holds the fan, the fan always remains above the head, causing no injury. This life saving fan rod has universal design and hence can be fitted to any make or brand of fan. This is installed across several hospitals, hotels, hostels, jails, and government quarters.
Priced at only Rs 250, the ‘anti-suicide’ ceiling fan, has become a big hit in Kota hostels. The sole reason for this is that Kota has many sad tales to recite. In the last six years, over 60 students have committed suicide in the campus, which is one suicide every month. While the majority of suicides on the hostel campuses are committed by hanging, there are little preventative measures in place.
When someone tries to hang himself, the load exceeds the set point, and the rod’s “unlatching mechanism” kicks in. The road disconnects from the fan, and the individual is safely dumped to the ground. When the Kota Hostel Association learned of this, they placed an order for 5,000 of these rods for the campus.
Our company has worked with a number of institutes and organisations, including IIM Ahmedabad, AIIMS Jodhpur, dormitories in Kota, and the Ambala jail, to reduce the worry and problem of ceiling fan hanging.
“I began creating this rod in 2004, and it’s exciting to see our product acquire national exposure. Thanks to the reality programme,” Sharad says.
Sharad chose to start his own business while working as an assistant general manager for a multinational corporation. He earned a grant of Rs 4 lakh in Mahindra’s Spark The Rise competition in 2011 under the ‘social innovation’ category.
He, on the other hand, opted to preserve the grant money and sell his invention on the market only after he retired. He took a break from it for a number of years before picking it up again in 2017.
Sharad chose to make an inventory of 200 rods rather than invest money on selling his items due to a lack of funding, he claims. He approached a newspaper for coverage, and his product was soon covered by a number of outlets. Orders started pouring in after that, he says.
“After reading Nafisa’s case, the first thing I did was stare at the fan. I wished the dupatta had untied or the fan had fallen during the act. I came across a similar case of a young girl committing suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan, a few days later.
A month later, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) produced a study estimating that 1,13,000 people had died by suicide. “Hanging was responsible for almost 30% of these,” Sharad says.
Sharad began recording NCRB statistics every year as part of his studies and saw that the number of persons utilising fans to die was increasing. In 2020, about 57 percent of suicides were committed by hanging, a significant increase since 2004.
He also noted a spike in college and university hostels. For instance, more than 48,000 students ended their lives between 2015-2019, which is a sharp rise from 38,000 between 2010-2014, he says.
“The solution of installing rods, at least in hotels, is better than removing fans, which a university was doing in 2021. It can make a world of difference even if the person reconsiders or delays their decision after a failed attempt,” he adds.
“The fan is usually installed at a height of 7-8 feet.” So I devised a system in which the rod, via a spring, disengages from the fan and safely lands the person on the ground. “As soon as the fan exceeds the predetermined weight, the mechanism kicks in,” Sharad explains.
He says he also visited Nata Mallick, an executioner in a Kolkata prison, to understand neck pressure and breathing rates as soon as the hanging process began.
“My first customer was the Air Force School in Faridabad. They placed an order for 300 retrofitting rods, which were quickly followed by the Kota Hostel Association. We’ve visited 80 percent of the hostels so far. The rod costs between Rs 300 and Rs 400, depending on the size of the fan,” Sharad explains.
“We have almost 500 of these poles covering our hostels.” It’s an extremely useful instrument that can save people’s lives. It is preferable to prevent something from happening in the first place than to repair the harm once it has occurred.” Said former IIM Kashipur store and buying officer Shivanshis Tripathi
(Geetha is the founder of Powerful Teachers, an organisation that works for the welfare of the elderly)
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