Malappuram: The invention of a retrofit wheel attachment for cars, which helps physically challenged and paralysed persons to drive, by Malappuram native and 80 percent paralysed entrepreneur, Thorappa Mustafa, has got the approval from Union and state government agencies.
The driving kit he developed can now fit with 46 variants of manual and automatic transmission cars of eight major carmakers.
The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), a ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises agency, has given the nod to his Perfect Vehicle Care Centre to provide the technology for the needy with a certification which is also endorsed by the motor vehicles department (MVD) of Kerala. “The approval from the government agencies to my technology will be a great help to thousands of differently abled persons who want to drive like others,” he said.
Musthafa has so far helped nearly a thousand such persons across the country with his technology. His invention includes nine types of designs which can be fitted with cars in accordance with their physical nature. The Latest of these is the finger control kit released two months ago.
“This technology helps a paralysed person to operate accelerator and brake using only a finger,” says Mustafa who has been paralysed from waist down for the past 23 years after a fatal road mishap.
He had in his life beaten roads nobody had travelled before. “During the past 17 years, I have modified more than 950 cars for people spread across the country. I have even clients in Andamans,” he says.
His first customer was from Chennai who still keeps bonhomie with him.
The wheelchair-bound 51-year-old is the first Indian who modified a car for the disabled for which he had won a national accolade in 2001.
To receive the award, he drove his modified Maruti 800 to Delhi all the way from Malappuram. Besides the car modification, he also runs an organic farm and 1.35-acre Ayurveda garden where 360 kinds of near extinct medicinal plants are nurtured.
