Suraksha, the device that detects leakage of liquid petroleum gas, and (below) its creator Gautam Kumar. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, March 28: Gautam Kumar, a young techie from the capital has been named social innovator of the year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA.

The 26-year-old has been chosen to develop Suraksha, a device that detects leakage of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and sends warning messages to people on their mobile phones.

Kumar, along with co-founder Kushal Nahata, got the idea of developing the device after he read about a gas leakage accident in the capital, in which a few people lost their lives.

The duo immediately felt the need of an alarm system, which could warn people in time and avoid hazards. Gautam is among the 18 young Indians, all under age 35, chosen by MITs’ Technology Review, the oldest technology journal in the world.

The device from Roboticwares, a company floated by the techie duo, is based on the olfactory sensors, which enables a machine to detect a certain type of smell and based on preset rules perform the actions programmed in it.

Suraksha can be configured to communicate with a maximum of five people by registering their cell phone numbers on the device. It sounds an alarm and sends an SMS to inform the registered users about the impending danger so that they are warned against starting any kind of fire or lighting a cigarette in the affected area.

Gautam was awarded at the third emerging technologies conference, EmTech India, which was recently held in Bangalore.

LPG blasts account for a significant chunk of fire incidents in the country. Yet there are hardly any devices developed to detect and automatically warn people about gas leakage so that safety measures can be taken in time.

“We had initially developed a leakage sensor with a buzzer alarm. We then realised that a buzzer alarm is of no use in an empty house. The alarm was improvised into an SMS-based feedback system which was connected to the sensor to detect gas leakage and immediately send SMS alerts to all the phone numbers registered in the system,” Gautam said

“The device starts checking the amount of LPG in the air and whether it reaches greater than or equal to seven parts per million (ppm). The buzzer or the SMS alerts, however, is set off once the amount of LPG reaches greater than or equal to 1000 ppm.

“The buzzer remains on until the amount of LPG in the air reduces to a safer level. And the SMSs are also sent again once the leakage stops,” he explained.

Suraksha will cost approximately somewhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000. It also comes in separate varieties for industrial and domestic use. The industry-optimised Suraksha is capable of sustaining extreme temperature conditions — from a range of minus 70 degrees centigrade to plus 70 degrees centigrade — as well as large voltage fluctuations. Roboticwares is now looking for a government subsidy to reduce the price of the device.