The Hindu                14.12.2013

Amma Canteen awaits fuel from biogas plant

At the Saravanampatty Amma Canteen, the breakfast gets exhausted in time and so does the lunch. The canteen managers prepare 1,200 idlis for breakfast and 300 plates each of sambar rice and curd rice for lunch everyday.

A day’s cooking requires a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder – commercial cylinder that weighs a little over 19.50 kg and costs nearly Rs. 1,000. Alongside the fuel, the Corporation needs 20 kg boiled rice, eight kg raw rice, six kg urad dal, six kg toor dal, a litre of oil among other things for the breakfast.

It also spends 38 kg boiled rice, eight kg toor dal, two litres of oil, 15 litre curd among other things for lunch. The civic body supplies the breakfast and lunch at a subsidised price.

To cut cost and to put to better use the waste generated from the canteen, the Corporation built a biogas generation plant that will generate methane gas from the vegetable and food waste from the canteen to fire the stoves.

It also designed the plant in such a way the biogas plant also takes in the waste from restaurants from in the neighbourhood.

According to sources, the biogas plant can take in nearly 500 kg waste a day and generate 15 – 17 kg methane.

The Corporation has spent Rs. 10 lakh towards building the plant.

But no fuel has been generated to date though the construction was completed sometime ago.

The sources say that though the Corporation has been dumping vegetable waste and food waste and gas gets generated there is inadequate pressure to convey the gas to the kitchen.

While visiting the biogas plant a couple of months ago, the Corporation Commissioner G. Latha had said that the Corporation would explore possibilities of setting up such plants at a few other places.

But with problems in the Saravanampatty biogas plant, the Corporation is keen on setting right things before it can build such plants elsewhere in the city, the sources add.