The winters have always been tough for Delhi as the air quality slumps with season getting cold. Stubble burning in the neighboring states adds to their woes and the AQI tells you the story. The issue has long been debated as the deteriorating air quality has always been a health and environmental hazard; however, lately not surprisingly it has snowballed into a political issue as well.
After Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party formed the government in Punjab as well and that has set new political positioning as far as the issue is concerned.
Amidst all of this, the Punjab government's strategy to counter air pollution by curbing stubble burning showed some light as they commissioned Asia’s largest compressed biogas plant in Bhutan Kalal village, Sangrur this April. The plant spread over 20 acres of land is expected to be put to test this winter.
The plant came into existence to convert a huge volume of paddy straw into renewable energy. Compressed biogas plant manufacturers say that the plant is being managed by a German company named Verbio India that’s well equipped with a whole slew of machinery including shredders, bailers, rakers, and 42 tractors. The company is looking to collect about 70,000 tons of paddy straw during this harvesting season alone and to kick start the initiative they have already started collecting the leftover paddy straw from the village of Sangrur.
The mammoth capacity of 33.23 tons of CBG/day
The plant registers the highest compressed biogas production capacity of 33.23 tons per day which is the highest in the state of Punjab to date. The season of Kharif will also help the government target as much as 28 to 30 thousand acres of harvested land this time.
Pankaj Jain, head of the compressed biogas plant also added that while the prime focus remains on paddy straw, they will also collect the other agro residues during the pilot phase to see how it goes.
As far as the biogas storage is concerned necessary measures will be taken and the produced biogas will be commercially supplied to IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation).
Challenges Ahead
While the policy looks quite promising on paper, the state will have to find out a way to curb the mountain-like challenges standing in the way of implementation. The process of collecting the agro-waste needs at least five machines. The stubble leftover will be cut into fine pieces before they are compressed into compact round bales using a straw baler on a tractor. Thereafter it will be loaded into the trolleys; however, the poor condition of roads will make transportation more difficult than it is. Farmers set the stubble on fire because they are not left with any other option as heavy machinery and trolleys find it difficult to reach the farmers to collect the stubble.
Owing to these reasons the entire process becomes too time-consuming as the farmers cannot wait forever due to the small window that’s available for them once the harvesting season begins. They cannot let the crop suffer with untimely rains always around the corner.
In the past few years, the weather has become quite unpredictable due to climate change and the farmers are always at the receiving end, say farmers and biogas upgrading companies. That’s not it! Here is another challenge that makes the policy less viable in practicality. The overall moisture content in the bales must be less than 20 percent which is not the case if it rains just anytime.
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