Photo: Š MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Success Stories 2 January 2011
Renewable Energy: Biogas The Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project An ally in eliminating poverty in India
Photo: © MPRLP/Sandeep Khanwalkar
Stimulating demand for clean, efficient biogas
rural areas so, even though the Government of India provides grants, people are hesitant to adopt this new fuel for cooking unless they believe it will work. This meant that to introduce biogas, there were several things MPRLP had to do.
Families in remote tribal villages of the Mandla District of Madhya Pradesh mainly depend on wood as fuel for cooking. As forests become depleted, villagers have to go further and further to collect wood, taking time and energy that could be put to more productive use.
Working with Gram Sabhas
Those who have to buy wood pay high prices, which strains household budgets. And, apart from the time, effort and money spent obtaining wood, cooking fires cause indoor pollution and are not very efficient. The Government of India provides small grants, through the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, to encourage the installation of small biogas plants as part of a drive to speed rural development and reduce poverty. Supporting this initiative, the Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project (MPRLP), working with Gram Sabhas (village assemblies) and channelling funds through village development committees, is helping villagers in Mandla District switch to biogas. The enthusiastic response and growing demand show that biogas can be a viable alternative to wood as a fuel for cooking.
An important first step was to convince communities of the benefits. MPRLP, working with Gram Sabhas, arranged meetings in villages to explain how biogas plants work, what they cost, the benefits they can bring, potential problems and how problems can be overcome. Posters, flipcharts, talks at awareness camps and films about biogas backed up these activities.
Benefits of biogas Biogas is clean Biogas is a clean fuel. It produces no smoke and so cuts down on pollution, especially indoors. Thanks to his biogas plant, Imrat Das has a clean and smoke-free kitchen.
Biogas: clean, renewable fuel for rural homes The potential for biogas is enormous. It can be generated from cattle dung, which is readily available, as most villagers own a few cattle. A two to three cubic metre biogas plant can provide almost all the energy a family of five or six needs for cooking. Unlike wood, biogas is a clean, smokeless fuel, whereas the smoke from wood fires can lead to asthma, lung cancer and bronchitis. Switching to biogas stoves means cleaner, healthier homes, particularly benefiting women and children. Biogas stoves are also more efficient. Women have better control over gas stoves than wood stoves and food can be prepared more quickly. They can start cooking as soon as they turn on the gas and turn it off immediately they finish without the effort involved in lighting wood fires, an especially difficult task when wood is wet.
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Biogas is efficient Biogas is almost twice as efficient as wood in producing energy, and biogas stoves are five times more efficient than traditional stoves. Biogas stoves light instantly in all weathers, making cooking quicker and using less fuel. In Kuna Devri, Nainvati Dai opens the valve that allows biogas to flow to the stove in her kitchen.
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Much time and effort is also saved as the women no longer have to gather wood and stockpile it for the rainy season. They are also relieved of the heavy work of carrying loads of wood back home on their heads.
Introducing biogas in rural communities An important part of the Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project is helping communities use local resources in sustainable ways. However, using cow dung to generate biogas is a new technology for
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Biogas saves money Families save money as their dependence on wood is reduced. Biogas reduces the work load Women are freed from the chore of gathering wood.
Photo: © MPRLP/Sandeep Khanwalkar
Benefits of biogas Biogas is sustainable The raw materials to produce biogas _ cattle dung and water _ are readily available renewable resources. Nainvati Dai feeds her biogas plant with cattle dung every morning.
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Biogas produces manure as a by-product Waste slurry from biogas plans is an excellent organic manure. Biogas helps conserve forests Biogas can replace wood as a fuel, reducing pressure on forests.
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Building on its work to strengthen the Gram Sabhas and channel funds through village development committees, MPRLP followed up the awareness campaign by helping Gram Sabhas identify which households could make the best use of biogas plants and how Gram Kosh (village funds) could be used to give loans to villagers to build them.
Explaining how biogas plants work
Nainvati Bai and her husband mix dung for their biogas plant.
A two cubic metre biogas plant, fed with dung and water once a day, can generate enough gas to fuel a stove for about two and a half hours. This is enough to cook a typical daily meal of rice, dal, vegetable and chapattis for a family of five or six people.
Training for construction and use1 Villagers in Gram Sabha meetings learned that they would need at least six cattle to provide enough dung to run a two cubic metre biogas plant for one household. Two cubic metre plants cost between Rs. 16,000 and Rs. 18,000, and three cubic metre plants, between Rs. 19,000 and Rs. 20,000. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy provides grants and the Madhya Pradesh Government provides top-up subsidies, so households can get up to Rs. 10,500 towards the cost. They can apply to Gram Kosh for loans for the rest and to buy stoves and pipes. A typical biogas plant has a tank for mixing dung and water, a sunken tank covered by a concrete dome for digesting the slurry and generating gas, and a tank for the waste. Every morning, dung from the cattle shed is fed into the digestion tank and water is added to make a slurry. As gas builds up under the dome, it pushes the slurry into the waste tank. A rubber tube takes the gas from the dome to the stove in the kitchen. Trained masons can build a biogas plant in three to four days using locally available brick, cement and concrete. Members of the household work with the masons and learn how the plants work and how to maintain them.
To begin with, MPRLP trained one person in each project facilitation team (PFT) on the construction and operation of biogas plants using films, charts and models. These trained people in turn trained the Livelihood Promoters in their cluster 2. Then, with the help of the Gram Sabhas, MPRLP identified 30 village masons and arranged for a master trainer to teach them how to build quality biogas plants. The masons learnt the basic principles, the layout and quality standards for biogas plants and, guided by the master trainer, each built a test plant. At village meetings, the Gram Sabhas drew up lists of families interested in having a biogas plant. The village development committees then recommended which families should be given loans. As well as making sure plants were properly built, MPRLP PFTs showed households when and how to add cow dung, how to add water to the dung and mix it to the proper consistency, and what to do if the plant
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See MPRLP Update number 11, Biogas. Each MPRLP project facilitation team is responsible for a cluster of villages.
wasn't working properly. One plant in the village served as a demonstration plant. The PFTs also taught women how to use and maintain biogas stoves efficiently. To ensure long-term sustainability, Livelihood Promoters were trained to repair and maintain biogas plants and given custom-made tool kits.
Biogas makes women's lives easier Nainvati Bai cooks for a large family. She is very happy with her new biogas stove because she can cook rice and dal more quickly than on the wood fire. As there isn't enough gas to cook everything on the new stove, she still uses the wood fire to cook khichdi and rotis. The new gas stove saves Nainvati a lot of time and she uses half as much wood as before. Nainvati Bai is able to cook dal on her biogas stove in half the time it takes on the wood fire.
Biogas saves time and money Santra Bai's husband, Sonilala, says “Har saal Rs. 1,000 se zyada ki lakdi jalate hain. Ab zaroorat nahi” (Every year we used to burn more than Rs. 1,000 worth of wood. No longer). Santra now uses a biogas stove to cook meals for her family of six. The family has even added a water tank to make it easier to mix slurry. Another typical story, from Khairi Khapa, is that of Imrat Da Bairagi. Like many of the villagers in this part of Mandla District, Imrat's family had to go further and further for wood or pay higher and higher prices. Imrat's sister walked eight kilometres a day to fetch wood that met only part of the family's fuel needs. Imrat said “Barsaat ke 4 mahinon ke liye hame 150 bojha lakdi pehle se laa kar rakhna padta hai” (We had to collect and stock about 150 head loads of wood to see us through four months of rains). Imrat and his brother decided to share a three cubic metre plant. This will provide enough gas to meet both families' needs.
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
What next? Biogas saves time and money Biogas saves households in villages such as Andia and Khairi Khapa both time and money. Women can use the time they save gathering five to seven quintals of wood a year _ 300 to 400 head loads _ for more productive work. Families can save between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1,500 a year.
Santra Bai mixes dung and water every morning to feed her biogas plant.
MPRLP has helped install biogas plants in all the districts where it is working. In Mandla District alone, 350 families now have biogas plants. MPRLP staff monitor the plants to make sure that they work properly. Staff are also being trained to promote agricultural residue as a feedstock, alongside cow dung, and composting slurry to make it more effective as manure. Demand for the biogas plants is growing because villagers have seen the benefits. MPRLP is working with the Gram Sabhas to help as many households install the plants. There are also plans to link the biogas project to the carbon market so that villagers will be able to sell their emission reduction units and use the money to maintain their biogas plants.
Photo: © MPRLP/AM Faruqui
Contact Telephone : +91-(0)755-2766812, 814, 815 Fax : +91-(0)755-2766818 E-mail: mprlp@mprlp.in Website: www.mprlp.in
Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project MPRLP is a Government of Madhya Pradesh initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). This publication does not necessarily represent the views of the Department for International Development.