Aniruddha Das, a Class X student from Birbhum’s Kaitha High School, will represent India at the International Science and Engineering Fair this year.

Aniruddha, the son of a medicine shop owner from Kaitha, a remote hamlet 90km from Santiniketan, bagged the grand jury prize this January at a virtual award ceremony organised by the Initiative for Research and Innovation, organised by the Centre's department of science and technology.

The 16-year-old last year came up with a unique innovation producing mosquito repellent from extracts of the acacia fruit.

“I was surprised after receiving the letter from Delhi and a proposal that my project will be taken to the international stage,” said Aniruddha, who will be the only representative from Bengal, and one among 20 young innovators from India, who will compete with over 1,800 youths from 80 countries.

On Thursday, Aniruddha came to Bolpur with his teacher Syed Imtiaz Ahmed and the coordinator of the National Children Science Congress in Birbhum, Tarak Banerjee. He had to qualify three tiers at the district level in the National Children Science Congress before participating in the national fair.

Aniruddha, whose annual family income is around Rs 50,000, had to struggle with poverty to continue his studies, said he got the idea about the mosquito repellent on the way home from school in 2019.

“I saw one of our neighbours cutting a dozen akashmoni (Acacia Auriculiformis) on the banks of his pond. When I asked him the reason, he claimed hundreds of fish in his pond died because the fruits of the tree were falling into the water. After talking to local experts, my neighbour had decided to fell the trees. The incident sparked a thought of using the flower as a repellent,” he said.

Aniruddha thought if the fruit of akashmoni could kill fish, then its extract could be used to kill mosquito larvae in stagnant water.

“Aniruddha informed me about his idea and I asked him to experiment with it. After his experiment, we found that it was really working. Later, we planned to submit the project before the district level National Children’s Science Congress,” said Syed Imtiaz Ahmed, a teacher in his school, who also guided Aniruddha’s friend Ramiz Akbar in preparing another project.
Tarak Banerjee, the district coordinator of National Children Science Congress in Birbhum, said: “We are overwhelmed that Aniruddha is going to be the first student from our district to compete at the international level of the fair.”