Anju Devi has spent a lifetime cooking her family’s food using firewood and cow dung cakes. Now in her late 40s, the resident of Bataspur village in Gaya district is marvelling at her new cooking stove, which is powered by that very same cow dung, thanks to the Gobar Dhan scheme being jointly implemented by the Union and Bihar governments.
“For the past twenty days, I have been cooking food on gas which is directly coming to my house through a pipeline and I haven’t spent a single paisa on it. Everything is free, from the connection to the meter. I just need to pay the money for the use of the methane gas,” Ms. Devi said, sitting in front of her stove.
Though it was launched at the Central level in 2018, the Gobar Dhan scheme has started to show results in Bihar only over the last month, with local plants piping the methane gas generated from cow dung into homes in three villages so far. Apart from Bataspur, Donha village in Jamui district and Sakri-Wajidpur in Muzaffarpur have been the initial beneficiaries, though there are plans to take the scheme to 11 more districts in the State. The scheme is already being implemented in Haryana, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.
Dung to gas, compost, water
The scheme’s Hindi name literally translates to “cow dung wealth” in English, but GOBAR is also used as an acronym, standing for Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources. It is part of the Centre’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission, which focussed on stopping open defecation in its first phase, but then moved on to a wider cleanliness mission in its second phase, including solid waste management. The main purpose of Gobar Dhan is to keep village streets clean of cow dung, and also to generate income for cattle rearers.
Under the scheme, the State government purchases cow dung at the rate of 50 paisa per kg to generate methane gas. In Bataspur village, a plant has been set up on 7,000 square feet of government land and requires 60 metric tonnes of cow dung per month. Around 50 households in the village have now started using the methane gas for cooking purposes. Vermi compost prepared from the plant’s waste can be used as fertilizer for organic farming, while the water generated by the plant is also used for the fields. The total spend on the scheme in this village is about ₹50 lakh.
Making money from waste
Impressed with the scheme, many villagers have now started purchasing cows and buffaloes. Around 200 kg of cow dung is being purchased in the village daily.
Raju Ravi Das, who has three cows, is now planning to buy two more cows so that he does not need to spend more money on cooking gas. “I am selling the cow dung and in return getting the money as well. If I will have more cattle, then it will be more beneficial for me,” Mr. Das said.
With an LPG cylinder costing ₹1,001 in Bihar, many cannot afford cooking gas. Methane provides an alternative, and villagers say they are spending an average of ₹500 to ₹600 each month for the piped gas. The bill is generated through a meter fitted outside the house, with the meter and pipe, costing ₹4,000 and ₹1,500 respectively being provided free to scheme beneficiaries.
“We cannot afford the cost of a gas cylinder because we are poor people,” said Asha Devi, another Bataspur resident. “Ever since the cooking gas through cow dung is being provided, it has made our lives easy. Every day, we have to struggle a lot to arrange the woods and other fuel for the cooking. Now, my husband does not need to go anywhere in search of firewood and stray or kerosene,“ she added.
Public health benefits
Another resident, Nirmala Devi, said that cooking food on the cheaper gas has changed her life, as she is no longer inhaling toxic smoke from wood and dung fires.
Manoranjan Kumar Samdarshi, the deputy headman of the Basadhi Panchayat which includes Bataspur village, said, “Earlier, the cow dung used to be scattered all around the village, but now the village keeps the cow dung to sell to the government. The government is also selling vermicompost generated through the waste of the plant at the cost of ₹10 per kg and they are using it for organic farming.”
Mr. Samdarshi added, “This will substantially reduce vector-borne disease and promote public health apart from generating organic manure which enhances agriculture and farm productivity. It also helps in reducing greenhouse gas emission and promotes environmental sustainability.”
While the Jal Shakti Ministry is the scheme’s nodal agency at the Central level, it is the Lohiya Swachh Bihar Abhiyan of the State’s Rural Development Department which has been assigned to set up the plants in Bihar. Rahul Kumar, who is acting as the director of the mission, said, “It is a centrally sponsored scheme in which Lohia Swachh Bihar Abhiyan is helping to implement the scheme in Bihar. The budget is 60:40 ratio and soon we will start this in eleven more districts of Bihar.”
