Shamit wins second K C Mahendra award for automotive design

Mumbai, Sep 22 (UNI) Shamit Shrivastav, student of Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has been declared as the first runner-up for this year's K C Mahindra Award for Excellence in Automotive Design.

Shamit wins a cash prize of Rs 50,000. The first prize was not declared as no entries were found suitable for the award.

The second runner-up award, carrying a cash of Rs 25,000, will be bestowed upon a group of students from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, comprising Divya Sharma, Vaibhav Anand, Abhishek Singh and Vijay Kshatriya.

Mahindra&Mahindra automotove sector president Dr Pawan Goenka, while announcing the names of the awardees at a press conference today, said, ''We have been successful in providing a platform that encourages open-ended thinking among students and it is heartening to notice that all the 100 entries demonstrate various innovative and new-age aspects of vehicle designing.'' Asked as to why not a single entry was found suitable for the first prize, Dr Goenka said although some very good ideas on automotive design were received from the participants, absence of practicality and he hoped that the participants would imbibe it with experiences in life.

Talking about this year's theme for the award, 'rural transport solutions', Vice President, Product Development, Automotive Sector of the company, Dr Arun Jaura, said that we had started with jeep which continues to be one of the most suitable vehicle for rural transport and hence we thought of chosing the subject for this year's award.

The design titled as 'Go on a run' by Shamit Shrivastav which won the second prize has been inspired from the Hindi word ' Gaon' which in means village. Explaining about his design, Shamit told UNI that the tractor designed by me has got two segments that are separated by a rubber wall. While the first segment is that of a tractor, the second sement is rear cabin which has the sitting capacity for five persons excluding one driver, he said.

The entries were judged by S M Sarawate, Vice President, R&D, Mahindra&Mahindra, Farm Equipment Sector and Dr Vijay Bapat, Head of Department, Industrial Design Centre, IIT, Mumbai.

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