At the mega Bengaluru International Automotive Expo held recently, where 500 established automobile manufacturing companies displayed their creations, it was the cynosure of all eyes. ‘Garuda’ — the brainchild of Nishant Sarawgi (23), a mechanical engineer who recently graduated from R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore — attracted considerable public and professional attention. Presented as the ‘Super mileage car’, Sarawgi claims that Garuda can run 180 km on one litre of petrol.
The impulse to design the single-seater Garuda was born in end 2005 when Sarawgi, then a second-year engineering student, decided to put classroom theory into practice and “create awareness about global warming”. Fortunately his concept of a super mileage car sparked the interest of seven fellow students who agreed to work under his leadership. Thus was born Project Garuda.
“When we started we didn’t have finance or expertise. But we were confident that the super mileage automobile was a feasible proposition. We deeply researched aerodynamics and automobile engineering in the college library, on the internet, and interacted with industry experts. Finally we managed to convince our college trust to give us seed money. One year later and many long hours in the workshop, we built a ultra-light, single-seat aerodynamically streamlined prototype model using a Honda 97 cc air cooled, lawn-mower engine. We successfully tested Garuda on the NICE corridor in July last year,” recalls Sarawgi, while revealing that project Garuda was initially funded by his father, Narendra Kumar Sarawgi who runs a management consultancy firm.
Built at a cost of Rs.4 lakh, the prototype of Garuda was formally presented to the public in August last year, by internationally acclaimed automobile designer Dilip Chhabria. Subsequently with wide acclaim and Sarawgi’s strong PR skills, the further development of Garuda has been sponsored by Tantra Info-solutions, CD-adapco, Chameleon and GE.
An avid student of the automobile industry who devours books, magazines and internet websites on the subject, Sarawgi has useful advice for parents of school and college students. “Classroom learning alone cannot prepare students for life. It has to be supplemented with hands-on extra-curricular education. Project Garuda gave me the opportunity to translate engineering theory into practice and schooled me in leadership, management and finance,” says Sarawgi who is getting set for entrepreneurship.
No prizes for guessing his preferred industry.
Debolina Sengupta (Bangalore)