Bihar bets on community biogas plants to check carbon emission
We have successful pilots at Gaya and East Champaran. The department has sufficient funding to promote community biogas plants under Lohia Swachha Mission: Rural development minister Shravan Kumar
Rukmini Devi, in her 60s, a resident of Bataspur village situated on the bank of Mohane river in Bodh Gaya, used to cook food on firewood with help of cow dung cake. With no helping hand at kitchen and both sons away in Chandigarh to eke out a living from plumbing, she hardly had any grudge in inhaling smoke coming out of hearth to cook for herself and her husband.
In November 2022, she discovered a new way of cooking without smoke. Her home got connected with piped supply of biogas produced from cow dung at a community plant set up by the district administration on the river bank under the Lohia Swachh Mission. She now happily pays around ₹500 per month and five kilograms of cow dung daily for supply of gas twice a day. She finds the deal better than using costlier liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder, as she can manage the waste of her cowshed well and in turn get proportionate share of organic fertiliser, either for self use or for selling.
Now, villagers are seeking to optimise production and supply of the biogas so that they could phase out the use of LPG. “Currently, we are getting only two to three hours of biogas supply from the plant to cook in morning and evening. We have to use LPG if somehow, we miss the schedule,” says Madan Saw, another villager.
The plant manager, who did not want to be quoted, claimed he had to regulate supply of gas for want of required amount of cow dung. “Currently, about 25 houses of Bataspur have biogas connection. We can supply biogas to 100 houses with available infrastructure. For that, we need around 500 kgs of cow dung everyday. Production of gas can be doubled with slight modification, if the inflow of cow dung is increased substantially,” he said.
District programme officer, Gaya, Vijay Kumar Singh, said local authorities have been told to prepare the plan to scale up supply and arrange raw material required to run the plant. “The district administration had hired a private technical agency to set up the plant and optimise its production if supply of raw materials is augmented,” Singh said.
A senior officer of the rural development department, under whose supervision the plant was set up, said the department was encouraging other districts to replicate the model.
“We have successful pilots at Gaya and East Champaran. The department has sufficient funding to promote community biogas plants under Lohia Swachha Mission. The Central government is also lending a helping hand to promote biogas production in a decentralised way. We are expecting similar initiatives from other districts also,” said rural development minister Shravan Kumar.
The minister said that similar biogas plants are also being set up at Supaul and Khagaria district under “Gobardhan scheme”. These plants are likely to be operationalised soon, as the initiative is in sync with the state government’s objective of achieving highest potential of community biogas at the villages.
“Biogas reduces the reliance on more conventional sources like firewood, charcoal, and kerosene. It contributes to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in turn mitigating possible contributions to climate change. Secondly, biogas is a cleaner source of energy and leads to lesser indoor air pollution and associated health issues. The digestate from biogas production can be nutrient-rich and be used as fertilisers,” said Ankita Jyoti, an air quality expert of Asar Social Impact Advisors.
Principal secretary, energy department, Sanjeev Hans, said the existing renewable energy (RE) policy in Bihar has the provision to support and encourage use of biogas, which would help the state reduce the carbon emission. “The government is mulling a new RE policy which aims to achieve net zero emission by 2070. Any initiative, which discourages biomass burning, is a welcome step,” added Hans.
Underlining the need to motivate villagers to usage biogas to do away with tension of managing dairy refuge, Joydeep Gupta, an environmentalist, said community biogas plants were first built at Gandhi Ashrams in 1950-60.
“The idea was to provide better alternative to the people to avoid using firewood and cow dung in cooking, as they are source to air pollution and impact health of women. However, arranging cow dung for the plant has been a major issue. It will be a great help to fight the climate change, if the district authorities are coming up with the idea of setting up the community biogas plants and ensure that the cowshed waste is properly utilised,” added Gupta.