Anand Mahindra is all praise for this bicycle that runs on railway tracks

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra took to Twitter to share one of the unique innovations by an Indian - a bicycle that can run on railway tracks.

Mahindra shared the video with the remarks ‘India could see an explosion of such small but useful productivity improvements.’

The DIY bicycle was invented by by a railway civil engineer named Pankaj Soin to help railway trackmen monitor repair work and use less number of people pulling the heavy rail carts.

Mahindra said the innovation is ‘simple, frugal and so obvious in hindsight’. “All the characteristics of homegrown innovation that can make work & life much easier & more efficient," he wrote on Twitter.

Simple, frugal & so obvious in hindsight. All the characteristics of homegrown innovation that can make work & life much easier & more efficient. India could see an explosion of such small but useful productivity improvements. Well done Pankaj Soin! @PiyushGoyal pic.twitter.com/E1j0BjkSEv

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) August 2, 2020

Pankaj Soin built this lightweight bicycle with the intention to make railway track maintenance a less of a tedious job for trackmen. Weighing only 20 kgs, the cycle can be manually placed on tracks by anyone to ride to the repair location.

Sion used old wheels from rail carts and iron pipes to create the extension arms of the bicycle. The front wheel extension helps to keep the bicycle aligned to the railway tracks while the rear wheel helps balance it.

The bicycle can reach upto a speed of 15 kmph and can carry two people. The cost to build one of these bicycles would take around ₹5,000. This includes the price of the old bicycle on which the model is designed.