Two hundred villages, 25,000 families are all set to go green, with the state government aiming to promote biogas in its pioneer project initiated by the Bio-Energy Mission.

With the slogan “Kachda lao, biogas le jao”, the government is aggressively promoting biofuel usage in the villages. It has allocated Rs 10 crore to launch biogas plants at a subsidised rate in these villages, said P S Ojha, State Coordinator, Bio-Energy Mission, Planning Department. The commercial operation of the scheme is expected to commence from March 31, 2009.

Envisaged as being a community-driven project, the Bio-Energy Mission has proposed that entrepreneurs from each village will invest 25 per cent of the total project cost; the rest will be funded through loans from banks or financial institutions. The government will offer a maximum of Rs 5 lakh as capital subsidy, which will amount to 25 per cent of the total project cost.

“We have already received 158 applications from places like Sultanpur, Kabirnagar, Hardoi, Chitrakoot and Agra and are in the process of launching advertisements to draw more entrepreneurs,” said Ojha.

With this, traditional cooking in these villages will get a facelift as chulhas will be replaced by modern stoves and clean fuel.

A single biogas plant with a capacity of 100 cubic metres consumes 1,875 kilograms of agro-waste to produce 80 kgs of methane gas per week. Agro-waste includes cowdung, kitchen waste, water hyacinth and other biodegradable household waste. Methane produced per week by one such unit per village will be sufficient for all its households to cook for seven hours daily.

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