The Hindu 19.02.2015
Three biogas plants inaugurated at Thandalam
Benefits are huge, says S. Kamaraj of TNAU
The biogas plant installed in the house of a beneficiary at Thandalam near Arakkonam.— Photo: C. Venkatachalapathy
Three biogas plants, installed with the help of the
Thandalam Yogashema Trust (TYT) and technical assistance of the Tamil
Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), were inaugurated in Thandalam,
about 8 km from Arakkonam, on Wednesday.
The labour
component of the installation of the plants was provided free of cost to
beneficiaries K.S. Gopal, M. Balakrishnan and V. Rajagopal thanks to
the construction of the plants by masons who underwent a 10-day training
offered by TNAU in the village recently, according to S. Kamaraj, Head
of the Department of Bio-Energy, TNAU, Coimbatore.
Mr.
Gopal said he established a two-cubic meter biogas plant with the help
of the trainee masons in December. He has three cows with which he was
able to feed 25 kg of cow dung to the plant daily.
Mr.
Balakrishnan has established a 4-cubic meter plant. With 20 cows, he is
able to get 75 kg of cow dung to be fed to the plant daily.
Mr.
Rajagopal has installed a 6-cubic meter plant. He too has 20 cows. “I
get a steady supply of biogas from the plant,” he said.
Dr.
Kamaraj said with these plants the beneficiaries would be able to save
the cost of buying LPG for cooking. The 12 cubic meters of biogas, which
they would be producing daily, was equivalent to 150 cylinders of LPG
per annum. The manure in the form of slurry, which is a by-product of
biogas, was equivalent to 30 bags of urea. They could also save on
chemical fertilizers. They planned to take up vegetable cultivation by
using the slurry as manure.
Radha Parthasarathy,
Managing Trustee of TYT, said the establishment of the biogas plants was
part of the rural development activities undertaken by the TYT with
TNAU’s help as part of an MoU signed between the two institutions last
year for imparting modern technology to farmers in the village.
The
Trust hoped to expand its activities soon to the neighbouring
Itchiputhur village whose president P. Gunapooshanam Palraj had evinced
interest in the construction of hygienic individual toilets to eliminate
open defecation.