Chennai couple makes vending machine for face masks in public places

The start-up by the couple is called Instagood technology solutions and has nearly 10 people working for them.

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Chennai couple makes vending machine for face masks in public places
The couple have so far sold around six pieces of the vending machine.

At a time when Covid-19 cases are massively rising, one of the first precautionary measures advised to people is to wear a mask. A young couple from Chennai has made a vending machine for face masks in public places.

At the Koyembedu bus terminus (CMBT), which is one of the biggest bus deports in the state, the CMBT has given free space for the vending machine in its premises to Vijayaragavan Visuvamithiran and Krishna Priyadarshini Elanchezhian. The couple who in their start-up venture started off making a vending machine for unevenly shaped products focused their efforts on vending coconut water from fresh coconuts. This project had got government funding of Rs 2 lakh under the TN EDII IVP project. But sadly halfway through their project, the couple had to face the lockdown. This was when the idea for making a vending machine for face masks emerged.

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“We were focused on doing something for society. I had an IT job while my husband was a full-time research fellow at IIT Madras. But when I saw the importance of this project. I quit my job last year in August 2020 and have been working full time with this project," said Krishna Priyadarshini who hails from Kumbakonam.

Krishna and Vijayaraghavan were classmates at the College of Engineering Guindy before getting married. The couple is focused on the maximum utilisation of their resources. Vijayaraghavan, who hails from Madurai said, "These small compact machines took close to six months for production. We made everything from scratch. We are selling the machine at Rs 22,000 and these machines have a current capacity of holding 500 masks and can be expanded easily to hold 1000 masks as well."

Moreover, the couple says that this machine can always be put to use. Post corona this vending machine can be used to vend sanitary napkins as well. These can be placed in public toilets.

The machine which is made at Rs 22,000 has each mask sold at Rs 5. "For the sealed mask, our manufacturing cost is Rs 3. So, at present, we have a profit of Rs 2 per piece. We have so far sold 40,000 pieces from this one vending machine alone," says Krishna. The challenges that were faced by the couple include making people understand the use of the machine.

“Initially people were not able to understand the use of the machine. We have had people thinking of the machine as a sanitiser machine or thermal scanner. The security guards here used to explain the purpose of the vending machine to people. Later, we modified the writing and made more visual indicators for people to understand,” said Vijayaraghavan.

The couple has so far sold around six pieces of the vending machine. Two were brought by Anna University which is being put on their campus.

The couple's start-up called Instagood technology solutions has nearly 10 people working for them and this is a Rs 3 lakh bootstrap project.

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