Man from Kerala Accuses Railways of Stealing Safety Device Idea

The New Indian Express: Mangalore: Friday, 03 October 2014.

An innovator from Kerala says the Southern Railway hijacked his idea for an anti-collision device and sold it to various countries.

Sahadevan, from a village called Mankara in Palghat, has been fighting the mighty railway establishment to claim recognition for an innovation that he says he developed in 1995.

He has tried everything, from appealing to the President to squatting with his family in front of railway offices, but has not been able to move the authorities. “I am at the end of a 19-year struggle and I trust Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give me justice,” Sahadevan tells Express. “I know they are conscientious leaders.”

Sahadevan’s innovations, such as a solar-cooled umbrella, a self-cooling helmet and a wind-powered tower clock, have caught the attention of entrepreneurs, who have bought his ideas.

The Railways sold the idea to countries like China, South Africa, Russia, Singapore, USA, Europe, Australia and United Arab Emirates, Sahadevan rues.

He believes he would have been rich had he played his cards better.

“Initially, the Southern Railway officials in Palghat and Chennai talked to me, and I gave away all the details about how the device works. But they later stopped talking to me,” he says.

On two occasions, in 1995 and 1996, the railway officials called him over for meetings. “Two years later, my device hit the headlines but the success was attributed to Southern Railway and a technology company,” says Sahadevan.

His last letter, seeking justice, is dated August 3, and asks for Sadananda Gowda’s intervention. “I may be poor, but I do get ideas and the anti-collision device was my dream innovation,” he says.

He had sought information to fight his case under the RTI Act, but has not received any response.

He has now appealed to the Central Information Commission to act against lapses in the RTI system.

‘No, We Didn’t’

Southern Railway has denied the piracy charge. Rajaram, a former Konkan Railway engineer, developed the device with help from a Hyderabad company, according to a senior Southern Railway official at the Palghat divisional office. Ministry records in Delhi make no mention of Sahadevan either, a source said.