Cuttack: With an aim to make divyangs' life better, a group of students of Swami Vivekanand National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (SVNIRTAR) developed a wheelchair that can run on solar power.

The solar-powered wheelchair can function for about three hours once its battery gets charged and it can move at the speed of 15-20 kmph.

The entire credit for the project goes to the 8th semester students of Physiotherapy department of SVNIRTAR, Olatpur, around 30 km away from Cuttack. Under the guidance of HoD Patitapaban Mohanty and Lecturer Basant Kumar Nanda, 10 students designed the solar-powered wheelchair within two months for the persons with disabilities.

Apart from divyangs, the project will be very useful for the people with spinal cord injuries.

With the innovation of solar-powered wheelchair, there will be no need for taking help from others for moving one place to other. They just need to use accelerator to move and break to control the speed. The wheelchair has also an horn. A solar-powered wheelchair can be made at expenses of Rs 40,000-45,000.