The concept of a disinfectant tunnel is not a new one today but one of the first movers and shakers in this coastal state has been Nexyite Infotech Services. You're probably already aware of this Bhubaneswar-based start-up launched in 2018, but let me quickly jog your memory anyway. Their main product is HII (Human-Information Interaction) Systems, an interactive kiosk that offers charging points, calling services, a tablet and is equipped with two 50-inch screens on which run various ads. So while the service is free for the public, they still generate revenue through ads. One has been installed in Patia and Jayadev Vihar each in Bhubaneswar and two in Visakhapatnam Railway Station in Andhra Pradesh. "Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that even the railways will be closed. So we knew that we had to evolve if we needed to sustain," says Chitta Ranjan Behera, CEO and Co-founder, while speaking about COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown.
So, in the first week of April itself, they decided to do their bit to make public spaces safer by coming up with a disinfectant tunnel. They travelled to their workshop in Cuttack to make this tunnel with mild steel (MS) with dimensions 12x12x6 ft. The first one to take them up on the offer was the Kendrapara Municipality. They have set up one outside Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) too. This KIIT-TBI incubated start-up has installed these tunnels at many such places. "Now there are four to five players in the market already, but we continue to offer our services if we receive a query, though we have refrained from indulging in any extensive marketing," explains the 26-year-old who estimates that they will begin working on their HII-Systems come July 1 as they have already received ten orders from the Visakhapatnam Railway Station.
"The idea behind the disinfectant tunnel was to sustain, which it has helped us do. It was never about profit," explains the youngster who adds that they need `52,000 to get through their monthly expenditure as a start-up. It takes about two days to manufacture and install this tunnel, shares the youngster who pursued his Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering Bhubaneswar. Currently, they have three people dedicatedly working on the tunnel at their Cuttack workshop and actively, about six people working for the start-up. So, while their focus remains the HII-Systems, they are open to installing the disinfectant tunnels as well.
They get about two queries per day for the tunnel
Inside the tunnel
- The display unit shows how many persons have passed through the tunnel
- Sprinkling duration can be changed
- It has a 16x2 cm LCD display
- There are two buttons inside the device, Select and Next
For more on them, check out nexyite.com
