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Shattered Dreams—Community Project Goes Up In Gas

S P Singh

One of the most ambitious projects of the state government – dotting the entire countryside with community biogas plants as an alternative fuel resource – has come a complete cropper with none of the over 135 such plants now functioning but the director of the Punjab Energy Development Agency still says that “you cannot call the experiment a failure.

Set up at a cost of Rs Five lakh to Rs 10 lakh per each such bio-gas plant depending upon its capacity, crores of rupees have gone down the drain, and as PEDA authorities themselves admit, there is no hope of retrieving the situation.

The dream of non-conventional energy spewing community-held biogas ventures would now be completely shattered as PEDA is on the verge of auctioning the material of over 100 plants and a decision to this effect has already been taken, said director S S Sekhon.

The project started in September 1987 and panchayats of villages which wished to install these plants were asked to contribute 4 kanals of land. The gas plants came in two sizes of 2 X 85 and 60 cubic metres sizes, costing about Rs five lakh and Rs 10 lakh, respectively. Each plant needed 60 to 90 user households for contributing the cowdung and using the gas supplied by the plant which could be used for cooking purposes. The gas was supplied through a network of underground pipes.

The sad story started soon after the plants were installed. Most of the 134 plants did not function for more than 6 months. And at most places reasons were similar. Either not many were willing to contribute the cowdung, minor repairs were not carried out in time or villagers could not care less because the plant was installed too far.

Each plant had two permanent employees to run it, one as manager and the other to collect the dung on a hand pulled cart (rehra).

"Cooperative system in Punjab's villages has never worked very well. Good managers were hard to find. Another factor was that the state government babus had created a dream of 'free fuel’. People were not educated that it was their job to run the plant and they would be paying for the fuel," said Gurmit Palahi, Principal of Community Polytechnic at Palahi village which was the recipient of first community biogas plant. Thanks to the efforts of the polytechnic, this particular plant ran the longest lap, spewing out gas for 13 long years, when every other plant in the state had come to a stop, before it too broke down.

Palahi is perhaps one of the most progressive villages where each household has an e-mail address and free access to the internet. The 17 individually owned plants in the village are running fine. "We have a number of technical staff of the polytechnic which helped in keeping the plant on the go, but we can understand the plight of people elsewhere," Gurmit said.

The community biogas plant at Pandori near Phagwara, installed in 1986, broke down after six months. The Sangatpur plant did not function even for a day and now presents an interesting picture as villagers use the big drums for putting on dungcakes. "The plant was to run on cowdung, but now we use it to bake cowdung cakes," said a cheeky villager. The plant at Hargobindgarh was installed in 1994 but at a dera thus failing to involve the villagers. The result: it ran out of dung in a month, and has never worked since.

Running the biogas plant needed rudimentary technical know how but even that is not available in many Punjab villages.

Earlier the plants were being looked after by Punjab Agro Industries Corporation. PEDA came into the picture in September 1991. But it cannot escape from failure to run the plants as all the plants installed under its aegis after September 1991 have also shut down operation.

"Well, I do not call it a failure. We succeeded in educating the villagers about non-conventional energy usage and they at least know now that fuel can be sourced through biogas plants. In fact, the community biogas plants were rsponsible for spreading the awareness which prompted large number of villagers to go in for individual biogas plants," said PEDA director Sekhon. But if it was an awareness spreading exercise, it was a bit too costly for the tax payer as each community biogas plant involved a major subsidy component.

"The failure was not due to any technical reasons, it was due to social reasons. Whereever there were good community leaders or active panchayats involved, the plants lasted for far longer," he said.

He said even now PEDA had offered to grant Rs One lakh to those panchayats which were interested in reviving the plants. However, only two, Palahi and Mansoorwal,  have come forward.

"The plants need at least Rs 2.5 lakh worth of repairs to become functional. We are trying to get more funds," said Gurmit Palahi.

Panchayats in villages, where biogas plant material is now to be auctioned off, are now worried about what will happen to the land given to PEDA for these plants. "At most places this land is worth lakhs, and many panchayats have pledged it to PEDA," said a representative of these panchayats.

Nowhere perhaps has PEDA's punchline, carried prominently on its letter heads – Working towards a sustainable energy future – been proved so wrong as in the case of community biogas plants.■

2000

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