By Prarthana Mitra
Young entrepreneurs in rural districts across Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu have been doing “do-it-yourself” versions of upcycling cattle waste by converting their cowsheds into power plants and sustaining their businesses.
Following in their footsteps and to give them an extra push the central government’s new initiative to harness bioenergy aims to serve entrepreneurs in the rural sector. Under the latest “gobar dhan” scheme, 700-800 biogas plants will be set up across the country, to generate viable industrial energy and manure from this waste.
Here’s what happened
In a country where more than 30 lakh tonnes of waste is produced every day, the Modi government is encouraging entrepreneurs to convert cow dung to generate electricity, gas, and fertiliser and incorporate such methodologies as a part of their business model.
The government plans to roll out the scheme in several phases over the next few years. The first phase will cover around 350 districts and the rest will receive infrastructural and monetary aid in the second phase. In 2018-19, about 700 biogas plants across the country will be set up by providing performance-based incentives to gram panchayats, self-help groups (SGHs) and bulk generators like gaushalas.
The scheme was launched on Monday by Uma Bharti who heads the drinking water and sanitation ministry.
Why you should care
Today, brothers Amit and Aditya Aggarwal from Haryana are able to run their family-owned industries entirely on electricity that they produce from cattle dung in the nearby ‘gaushalas’. By making use of biomass, they have been producing 2 megawatts of power daily since 2014, without government support.
A homemade gobar gas plant made by Sahas Chitlange. Credit: Sahas ChitlangeSuch initiatives enabled them to eliminate all the bureaucratic hassle involved in enlisting official help, and also provided a solution to rampant exploitation, nepotism, corruption and demand for bribes, which Sukhbir Singh from Jhajjar experienced.
Singh struck gold when he came up with the idea to produce electricity from poultry excreta after his family fought several cases against the local electricity department, back in 2010. Today, their bio-gas plants generate enough power to meet most of the electricity needs of four poultry farms, reports Times of India.
These case studies have helped the government to identify and plug the gaps in local biogas production. The centre’s scheme to help rural entrepreneurs better utilise “gobar dhan”, which roughly translates to “green gold”, maybe a first of its kind, synergizing alternative power sources with government grants.