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.
