The `Happy Seeder’ developed by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has solved the problem of air pollution due to burning of residue like paddy straw in the Northern States, a senior official in Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) said today.

Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were facing problems of burning of paddy straw which resulted in heavy air pollution, ICAR Deputy Director General (Engineering) Dr K Alagusundaram said.

Inaugurating the three-day XXI workshop of ICAR-AICRP on energy in agriculture and agro-based industries at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, he said the innovative solution was brought about through the introduction of `Happy Seeder’.

TNAU Vice-Chancellor Dr K Ramasamy spoke about earlier researches in renewable energy and said there was the need to disseminate technologies to the end users in an effective way. Focus should be on ideas for developing hydrogen production units, distribution setups for producing alcohol and solar modules production in India.

Publications on research highlights, genesis and overview of AICRP on EAAI, directory of renewable energy gadget manufacturers and suppliers, large capacity fixed dome solid-state biogas plant and introduction to renewable energy were released.

Awards were presented to successful renewable energy handlers N Sridhar for his sustainable energy home, Nataraj for his renewable energy farm, N Janakiraman for his success in the production of hygienically dried ‘vadagam’ products using solar tunnel dryer and PV Babu for producing high quality dried rubber sheets using solar tunnel dryer hybridised with bio-gas plant and biomass gasifier.