Bulletproof Man

Grassroots innovator Makarand Kale has found a different and very unlikely use for farm produce

By Shruti Chakraborty

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4 April 2013

If you want to reaffirm your faith in the thought that entrepreneurship comes naturally to us Indians, a recommended way to do so is by travelling beyond the metros of the country. Travelling southward for roughly 400 km from Mumbai you will come across Sangli, a district in Maharashtra. And in this town is an innovator making bulletproof material.

Grass against bullets

Makarand Kale, a sports teacher by profession, runs Makarand Ayurveda Armors, a firm that dabbles in herbal products, but its claim to fame comes from bulletproof material—made from farm produce. Kale proudly claims he was always a bad student and failed repeatedly in school. But he always had the knowledge of how different agricultural produce can be used, which comes from experience and his curiosity.

“Have you ever chewed a spoonful of wheat grain?” he asks. “When I was a child, we used to chew on wheat grains. If you chew the grains for a while, it becomes something like a chewing gum in your mouth. I once took it out, stuck it on a wall and forgot all about it,” he says, recollecting how he first realized that he could make something useful out of this property of the grain. “I went back to it a week later and tried to get it off the wall, but it didn’t come off. It was harder than stone. I finally got it off the wall using a hammer and a screwdriver,” he recalls.

Success in the offing

In the ’90s, Kale began researching with food grains. He would first boil the grains and then press them to see what came out of them. “I tested a total of 280 types and varieties of grains.” Kale eventually developed various compounds from these grains that can be used for a number of purposes, mostly in defense equipment. Eleven of these grains are used to make the compound from which the bulletproof material is created. He is not comfortable sharing information about them for the fear that his years of research may be duplicated. But he reveals that wheat grain plays a major role in creating the unique compound. 
The compound is a kind of gel that Kale coats on cloth along with fiber glass. The plate is developed by a process of layering—it consists of layers of cloth with a layer of gel in between, which he lets harden over time. These layers harden and form a plate that resembles a metal plate, but is much lighter. The early field testing for this plate was done locally. In 2001, he got someone he knew—who had a gun—to fire at the plate. “The bullet did not pierce through and the plate showed no signs of damage at all,” he claims. 

Helping to grow

In 2002, he got in touch with the Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN), a technology and business incubator for grassroot innovations. GIAN helped him with filing a patent and to get in touch with others who could help further with the research. “I was also promised Rs. 1.8 lakh from the Department of Science and Technology, which was through GIAN,” he says. Mahesh Patel, National Innovation Coordinator for the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), worked with Kale during his stint at GIAN. “GIAN helped in mobilizing support on the scientific and technical side of things, and connecting Makarand to people who could help with testing the product and connecting with the DRDO to test the product,” says Patel. He says that one of the biggest challenges in supporting Kale was that he was not willing to disclose the process and ingredients of his product. “The entrepreneur is conservative about his innovation, which is not wrong, but it prevents him from receiving help from scientists,” he says.

Kale’s innovation also got him an award from the NIF. The Honey Bee Network which collaborates with the NIF and GIAN on grassroot innovations was one. Brigadier P Ganesham, VSM (Retd.), who heads the Honey Bee Network’s activities in Andhra Pradesh, helped Kale test his product. “Kale had brought his product for testing twice. We fired the weapons that are used by the police and the army on the product. The first time, the product failed when it was shot at by one of the guns. The second time, the product was successful with all the guns we used,” Ganesham says.

Demand and supply

In 2008, Kale claims that he got his product tested at the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). “I have received orders for the product from DRDO as well and I am selling the product to them,” Kale says. He affirms that he has received orders from the DRDO for bulletproof helmets and jackets. “The DRDO had asked for 2,000 units of my products, but I couldn’t fulfill the order because of financial constraints. I now send 20 units at a time,” he says, adding that he has dispatched five orders for Rs. 11 lakh each till date. The High Energy Materials Research Laboratory of the DRDO has not responded to this reporter’s request for clarification on the same.

Kale’s product offering ranges from bulletproof helmets and jackets, heat resistant material and radiation-proof material. He is currently trying to get his radiation-proof material tested and did his initial testing with an old X-ray machine he had access to. The bulletproof helmet costs Rs. 7,000. Besides, there are seven kinds of jackets for different kinds of guns. There are jackets that are for use by non-defense personnel as well. “There are many rich people who have a threat, but aren’t likely to be shot at by someone who has an AK-47,” Kale explains. These jackets are priced between Rs. 18,000 to Rs. 35,000, while those used by defense personnel are priced at Rs. 35,000 to Rs. 52,000.

Carry on, innovator

Kale has constantly made efforts to put the products he has developed to different uses. A story he quotes often is from an experience he had in Rajasthan, where he knew someone who was firing guns. This acquaintance told him that the performance of his weapons was poorer during the day. “During the day, the high amount of heat bends the barrel of the gun a little, which is invisible to the human eye. So I coated it with our heatproof material and that helped improve the performance of the guns,” he says. He adds he may sell this heatproof material to the armed forces as well.

Today, Kale’s manufacturing is entirely done by hand, assisted by his wife and students. He plans to automate manufacturing operations by the first half of 2013 and is getting machines built for this purpose. He is also trying to use his innovation for different uses—like the thread that can lift and hold large weights in his workshop. The workshop, which is an extension of his house, has a 14 kilogram weight hanging from the thread he is testing. The innovator in Kale has not blinded the entrepreneur in him. Aware that his innovation can grow only this much under him, he says he will be happy to look at a sellout of the innovation if the right opportunity comes.