Mumbai: Ruia College students find solution to get rid of ugly paan stains

It would now be much easier to clean ugly beetle leaf stains, which cost crores of rupees and gallons of water. The credit for this goes to a novel project by students of Matunga’s Ruia College, which received best integrated human practices special award at an international competition held by MIT Boston. 

The students worled towards preparing a solution that dilutes beetle leaf (paan)stains by applying a coat of microbes and enzymes to them. 

During the course of the project, the students had met paan shop owners as well as station managers, government officials and conservancy staff, who face difficulty while rempving the uncouth red stains from different structures.  

The MIT at Boston organises the International Genetically Engineered Machines research competition every year. This year, 300 teams were shortlisted to take part in it and the team from Ruia was given a special award for their innovation that help stain removal much less of a trouble.

The team of students and faculty from Ruia met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday and Fadnavis felicitated them for winning international accolades.

The Ruia team also won award for the ‘Best Project Under Environment Track’  along with a prize for the best presentation. 

The team of eight students including Aishwarya Rajurkar, Anjali Vaidya, Komal Parab, Nishtha Pange, Maithili Savant, Mitali Patil, Sanika Ambre, and Shrutika Savant received guidance from faculty members Dr Anushree Lokur, Dr Mayuri Rege, Sachin Rajgopalan, and Mugdha Kulkarni.