A 21-year-old mechanical engineering student from northern India's Uttar Pradesh has developed a low-cost, low-power consumption sanitiser tunnel amid the nationwide lockdown.

Mudit Mittal, a resident of Shahpur area in Gorakhpur, is a student at Kalinga University in Odisha. He was forced to return home after his university stopped classes due to the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.

"While browsing the internet, I found the current sanitiser tunnels in the market were expensive. Each product costs around 40,000 - 50,000 Indian rupees [USD 525-656]. I thought of developing a low-cost sanitiser tunnel so that anyone who passes through is automatically sanitised," he said.

He said the idea originated from the difficulty his family had to face while sanitising people who visited their house during the lockdown.

Mittal started working on the prototype in the first week of June and made the final version within three to four days.

"The prototype had a few flaws that I have rectified in the final version available for commercial use. It took me approximately four days to build the final sanitizer tunnel," he added.

His version of the sanitiser tunnel contains a physical frame made out of iron and ACP (aluminium composite panel) sheet, which is stable enough to stand on any hard surface.

Inside the panel, he has installed a motion sensor that detects a person walking into the tunnel.

Once motion is detected, extremely fine mist nozzle sprays the disinfectant solution on the person standing inside.

"The nozzle is extremely fine, which means it doesn't wet the person after the sanitisation. The suction pump sprays the disinfectant for six seconds after the person leaves the tunnel and comes to a stop. I use sodium hypochlorite concentration in 0.02 – 0.05 percentage as this ratio is under permissible safety limits, as per the CSIR-NCL directions," he added.

Mittal claimed his version of sanitizer tunnel is cost-effective and consumes less power.

"It cost me around Rs 22,000 (289 US dollars), almost half of the price of sanitizer tunnels available in the market. I am working on additional upgrades which will cut down the cost further," Mittal said.

At present, Mittal is looking for mass production for his tunnel so that it can be used in public spaces and help prevention of further coronavirus outbreak.

He says his mother Rachna Mittal and his father Alok Mittal, who is a businessman, already feels safe with the installation of the tunnel in front of his house.