Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Harsh Vardhan today unveiled LOCOMO-WC, a new form of low-cost motorised wheelchairs to help persons with disabilities move about without hassle.
The wheelchairs have been developed under an Indo-US collaboration and remodeled to suit Indian conditions at Indian Spinal Injuries Centre Under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Union Ministry of Science and Technology's "Make-in-India" initiative.
Costing around Rs 45,000, the LOCOMO-WC has wheels which operate independently making it suitable to handle uneven terrain.
The motorised wheelchair designed at Human Engineering Research Lab, University of Pittsburg, has been completely remodeled to suit Indian conditions by Dr H S Chhabra, Medical Director and Chief of Spine Service and Nekram Upadhaya.
Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, DBT, Rajesh Kapur, Advisor, DBT and Major (Retd) HPS Ahluwalia, Chairman, Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, (ISIC) New Delhi were present at the event.
