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Analysis
Village of My Dream
Self Reliant and Sustainable through Biomass
 Gandhiji wrote
and spoke extensively about his dream village but somehow was never able
to give a concrete plan or shape to his dreams. However intuitively he
rightly realized that it will be a unit where all the things needed by
villagers will be manufactured from the locally available resources. His
village would therefore be self sufficient and sustainable. In those
times of primitive technology his dream village was supposed to depend on
human labor and hence his insistence on very simple and rudimentary
technologies which could be made by villagers themselves.
However modern high technology allows for the first time to bring into
reality the dream village of Gandhiji. Such a village will be high tech,
self reliant, sustainable and will provide its residents a high quality
life.
Our villages have not changed very much since Gandhiji’s times. Thus
about 55-60% of India’s rural population has no electricity, very poor
drinking water supply and majority of rural population uses 180 million
tons of biomass every year as fuel for cooking through very primitive,
inefficient and smoky chulhas. In states like U.P., Bihar,
Orissa, Madhya Pradesh etc. some of the villages still exist in stone
ages.
India cannot
become the 3rd most prosperous country in the world, as some of our
national leaders are taking about, unless and until we bring 60% of our
rural population into mainstream of development and provide a quantum
jump to their quality of life. One of the best ways to do so is by
providing adequate electricity to these areas. This is an electricity
age. Adequate and uninterrupted supply of electricity for lighting,
agriculture, communication, entertainment and whole horde of other
activities can transform the lives of rural population and bring in
tremendous wealth to these areas. Modern high technology together with
locally available resources, can provide a mechanism to do so.
The most abundant local resource in rural areas is biomass (agricultural
residues, weeds and other plant material). India produces in these areas
about 600 million tons of agricultural residues/year, which can
theoretically produce 70,000 MW of electric power.
However all these residues should go back to the soil to nurture it so
that farm productivity increases. If it is used for power generation
than the soil will suffer. A much better way to both nurture the soil
and produce power is to produce biogas from these residues. A high tech
biogas producer can produce biogas with energy of about 13 MJ per kg of
biomass, which is similar to that produced by burning these residues via
a power plant. Besides the slurry from the biogas reactor produces
excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner. This is also the genesis of
organic agriculture.
Farmers have realized that organic foods fetch good price. Hence there
is a major movement towards organic farming. Organic farming is
environmentally sound and sustainable way of producing food, since it
incorporates integrated method of management which maintains the health
of soil and its productivity. Farmers in developing countries who switch
to organic agriculture also achieve higher earnings and a better
standard of living. This was shown by a series of studies conducted in
China, India and six Latin American countries by the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The study concluded that organic
food production could provide a way out of poverty for many small
farmers in developing countries and recommended ways of integrating
organic agriculture into development programs.
In 2003, India's organic exports stood at $15.5 million. Since
organically farmed produce fetches good price there are lots of farmers
who claim that their produce is organically grow when sometimes it is
not. Also often so-called organic inputs are spurious and ineffective.
Thus there is a need to set up an independent agency which can certify
whether the food was organically grown or not and monitor the
authenticity of input products.
Our Institute
Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) has developed a strategy
whereby biogas powered diesel gensets can also produce clean drinking
water as a by-product. Thus the strategy of using locally available
agricultural residues based biogas gensets will produce electric power,
excellent fertilizer and clean drinking water for the village. Besides
the excess biogas can also be used to provide clean cooking fuel for
villagers. This is true sustainability and may lead to Gandhiji’s dream
villages.
Thus a village level utility company can set up a 500 kW biogas powered
diesel genset which can supply enough electricity for an average village
with a population of 2000-3000.
In addition, the high temperature exhaust gases from these plants can
easily distill or boil water via a suitably designed unit, which can be
attached to the genset. A 500 kW power plant can therefore produce about
one lakh litres of clean drinking water every day. In producing both
electricity and clean water; the power plant efficiency will jump from
the existing 35% to around 65%. Most of the energy of these gensets is
lost in exhaust gases and cooling the engine. This energy can easily be
utilized for distillation or boiling water. The micro-utility company
could own the plant, whose shares in turn could be owned by villagers,
and be managed professionally, without the political pit-falls of a
cooperative society. The micro-utility could also lease village-level
transmission lines and infrastructure from the local State Electricity
Boards (SEBs) at a ‘social cost’, based on the cost of electricity most
SEBs charge farmers.
In order for this strategy to succeed it a necessary to set up a
national biogas technology mission so as to help research institutes do
R&D for high tech biogas reactors, provide soft loans for entrepreneurs
to set up such micro-utilities and to encourage government, corporate
sector and NGO partnership in this area.
–
Dr.
Anil K. Rajvanshi
October 9, 2005
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