Fewer biogas plants

Even as the Union Government is going all out to kindle the shift towards the use of greener renewable energy, its pulling the plug on the National Biogas and Manure Management Programme is perplexing. Under this scheme, which was started in 1981, farmers of rural and semi-urban areas were given a subsidy of 30 per cent on the cost (around Rs 45,000) to set up a plant generating biogas from cattle and human excreta. Not surprisingly, ever since this subsidy was discontinued, the number of farmers opting to install the plants has nosedived. In Punjab, as per Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) data, while more than 400 biogas plants were set up in every district annually till 2019, the past two years have seen their number dip to around 70.

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This subsidy withdrawal has, thus, decelerated the efforts towards making the highly desirable, but challenging, shift from the use of fossil fuels to sustainable energy alternatives. Every step is crucial for accruing carbon credits as India strives to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring access to affordable and clean energy to all. By producing biogas energy via this plant, a farmer is not only assured of cooking fuel ‘gobar gas’ that is cheaper than LPG but also proper disposal of cattle dung. It renders his environs free of dung littered around and the polluting methane gas released by it. Additionally, the plant’s byproduct slurry — a mix of water and dung — makes for chemical-free manure for agriculture purposes.

The authorities must review the decision and restore the incentive to facilitate biogas production as it provides an eco-friendly, self-sustainable and economically viable way of life for cattle farmers. The potential bio-energy conversion opportunity is huge and it must be tapped to the full. In his Mann Ki Baat address in 2018, PM Modi pointed out that three million tonnes of dung is generated by India’s 300 million bovine population while launching the Gobar Dhan Yojana, a scheme for converting cattle dung and solid waste in farms to compost, biogas and bio-CNG.