At the age of 88, K.U. Varunny, a Thrissur-based mechanical engineer, notched up a record of winning 15th patent for the hybrid bike he developed.
Records and patents have become a part of this octogenarian. He holds two U.S. patents in the automobile sector. Mr. Varunny has five national awards for technical inventions to his credit. This includes the NRDC award given by the President in 1972.
“The hybrid bike will be driven by the engine till the normal speed is attained. When once the normal speed is attained, the drive will be taken over by the motor. The system needs comparatively a lesser HP motor, and the battery will be charged while the engine is running. By any chance if the battery gets exhausted, the engine can take over,” Mr. Varunny explained.
There is also another provision to use both engine and motor jointly. In that case the engine will be running at constant speed in its best efficiency range and the motor will provide continuously variable gear ratio right from zero. The system can considerably reduce the operational cost and also reduce the pollution to a large extent, he added.
Winner of the NIP (National intellectual Property) award for the maximum number of patents in 2013, Mr. Varunny secured all these patents after his retirement as general manager in ‘Mulbox Ltd’ Uganda at the age of 60 in 1994.
“In Uganda, I was rebuilding Mulbox Ltd, the well known packaging firm, which was destroyed by Idi Amin as a revenge against Ms. Madhvani, the chairperson of the company,” he recalled.
At the age of 76, Mr. Varunny got an automobile power transmission system patented in the U.S. An anti-glare system for night driving that can be adjusted to the vision parameters of the driver is another remarkable invention.
Mr. Varunny, who finished his Mechanical Engineering degree in 1957 from the University of Madras had worked in many well known companies, such as ITC, Bangalore; Golden Tobacco Baroda; Wimco Bombay; Akerlund and Rawsing Hyderabad and Jetco Oman. He had undergone technical training in Japan, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Jordan and Sweden.
He won the NRDC (National Research Development Corporation) award in 1972 and 1990, and NIP (National intellectual Property) award for the maximum number of patents in 2013. He has been granted 13 Indian patents and two U.S. patents. He was also given the ‘Mother Theresa award’ in 2015, and ‘Bharat Jyoti award’ in 2006. He got his name in the LIMCA Book of Records in 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2016. Two of his patent applications are still pending in the patent office.
