Chakr Innovation becomes first company in India to get the type approval

Chakr Innovation becomes the first company in India to get the type approval certification from Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’s) recommended Lab for Retrofit Emission Control Device (RECD) to be installed on Diesel Generators.

As part of the major priorities set by the honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, wherein he explicitly communicated that “we must come out of the general belief that air pollution spreads only through industries but factors like transportation, unclean fuels, and diesel generators contribute to air pollution in the same manner and are equally harmful”.  Therefore, India must work out a holistic approach and enable the formation of a special program that can take up the associated challenges and work out a solution.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change then launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in December 2018 to work out multiple time-bound strategies with a long-term vision. The objective of the program was to reduce PM2.5 pollution by almost 20% to 30% by the end of 2024. It specifically recognized that DG sets contribute to 18-20% of the total air pollution caused in the cities and an action plan must be prepared.

The implementation of the program was then picked up by The Honourable National Green Tribunal, which was completely in sync with the harmful effects of particulate matter emission due to DG sets and thereby directed CPCB to come up with a systematic and sustainable solution in the form of policy formulation and issuing of certification basis the guidelines.

While CPCB worked out the guidelines, a bunch of IIT graduates formulated a novel product known as Chakr Shield, a Retrofit Emission Control Device (RECD) that helps in the reduction of the particulate matter (PM) from the DG set emissions over 75%. The Chakr RECD happens to be India’s first and only technology certified by one of the CPCB recommended labs. The technology reduces the PM 2.5, Hydrocarbons, and Carbon monoxide levels by more than 70%, and that too without causing any adverse impact on the DG sets.

Speaking on the concept from a thought leadership point of view, Mr. Akshay Panth, CIO of Neev Fund, said that “Chakr Innovation is a true leader, especially in terms of developing the product category in India. The leadership, the vision, and process clarity has been some of the commending factors because of which we invested in the start-up that is contributing to the growth of the country and is poised to be the leader in the green technology space.”

As a novel and first-of-its-kind technology, Chakr Shield is a patented technology that has back-pressure under permissible limits set by DG OEMs. The product comes with a long product life (8-10 years) with modular design that requires minimum space requirement.

Also, the product is type approved for performance by ICAT (CPCB accredited lab) while needing minimal additional energy that is supremely low on maintenance. Not only the product qualifies for accelerated depreciation by the Government of India, the certification also enabled running the DG sets during the CAQM ban in Delhi NCR.

The proprietary device has been installed at over 1000 places all across India and for organizations such as Tata, Amazon, Taj, ITC group along with various Government organizations and Defence Forces.

On the successfully receiving the certification, Mr. Parth Sarthi, Project Lead for Chakr Shield, expressed his happiness and gratitude. He said, “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it”.

With the right product in the market now, Chakr Shield is all set to create a revolution through pollution. To know more about the RECD for DG sets and the certification, please visit www.chakr.in