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Biomass power for three tribal villages

By S. Prasad

KRISHNAGIRI, MARCH 30. The Ministry for Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) has selected three tribal villages in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts for implementation of a Village Energy Security Project, which aims to bring out the importance of biomass energy as one of the major sources of renewable energy.

Before launching this programme the Ministry has initiated test projects by selecting 10 to 20 villages from every State for implementation of the project in select pilot villages. In Tamil Nadu 10 project villages have been selected covering different potential districts for implementing this programme. Of this, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department will implement five test projects with two in Krishnagiri district and one each in the districts of Dharmapuri, Villupuram and Dindugal at an outlay of Rs. 1 crore, said the District Forest Officer, S. Paulraj.

Villages selected

The pilot villages selected in Krishnagiri district are Jodikarai and Periyakallupalli in Hosur division and Karapadi at Harur division in Dharmapuri district. The respective District Forest Officers will select the village and implement the test project.

Mr. Paulraj said: "Although Tamil Nadu is leading in non-conventional energy sources in the country, most of the energy is contributed by wind and solar only as power from biomass is yet to take off in many states including Tamil Nadu. The advantages of biomass power is that it is renewable, adopted in any place including remote areas, labour oriented, requires minimum investment and easy maintenance."

Energy security

The plan aims at providing total Village Energy Security by generating power for all essential needs such as electricity, power for every house, community lights, motor power for community wells, biogas for cooking purposes. The entire energy for the above power will be generated from biomass such as oil seeds, oil cake, cattle dung, agricultural and forest wastes. A village-level energy committee will take care of the monitoring and execution of the maintenance works. An interesting feature of this project is that the villagers themselves generate and meet out their own energy demand on a sustained basis.

To ensure sustainability of the biomass availability the Forest Department will also develop energy plantations with oil yielding plants like `pungan,' `jatrohpa' and `neem' up to 80 hectares in each village depending upon the required energy. While 90 per cent of the funds for the project will be provided by the Ministry for Non-Conventional Energy Sources at the rate of Rs. 20,000 per household, the remaining funds of 10 per cent will be met by the state agency. Based on the project results the project will be expanded to all remote villages in Tamil Nadu.

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