A team of innovators of the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) here has developed a book sanitisation machine to deal with spread of COVID-19 through books, officials said on Thursday. The book sanitising machine was invented by a team of innovators of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Basic Sciences and Social Sciences of NEHU, a Central university.

Dr Aseem Sinha, one of the members of the product development team said, “This sanitising machine functions in an auto-controlled mode to sanitise all kinds of reading materials without causing any kind of damage to the material.” Sinha said it is a composite machine using ultraviolet (uv) rays and heat technology to sanitise books. He said the machine can sanitise up to 150 books in one cycle of about 45 minutes at a cost of 20 paise per book.

NEHU Vice-Chancellor Prof SK Srivastava inaugurated the book sanitising machine at the central library of the university on Wednesday. Prof Srivastava said, “The development of such a sanitising machine was a fantastic fusion of library, a place to provide knowledge and the School of Technology, the place to convert that knowledge into the means for social benefit.” He also came out with the acronym ‘ABSCoM’ for the machine.

Training has been imparted to the library staff to operate the machine, officials said. NEHU Librarian In-charge Dr F R Sumer said the device was felt necessary, about two months ago to manage the handling of the books and other reading materials, while in circulation among the students and other users, especially in the post lockdown situation.

The idea behind inventing this machine is to ensure a corona-free environment in the University library for safe use of the books under circulation, he said..