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Preparing
food on traditional fuel wood stoves has become a
thing of past for the women of many tribal-dominant
villages in Shahdol district since they have adopted
biogas stoves as such stoves have many benefits.
Credit
for this also goes to Madhya Pradesh Livelihoods
Project Shahdol whose officials created awareness
among people of 140 villages of Shahdol district and
convinced them to adopt biogas stoves instead of
firewood stoves in view of depleting forest cover in
the country. On an average a family uses 10 to 12 kg
of wood for fuel daily. In this manner, only one
family consumes 2.2 tonnes of firewood in a year. It
is anybody's guess how much fuel wood would have been
used by the entire village.
With
this in view, a campaign was launched to promote use
of biogas stoves and save forests. With the result,
biogas plants started coming up in villagers' houses.
It was as if women had received a major gift. Earlier,
they had to inhale the smoke billowing out of the fuel
wood stove which adversely affected their lungs and
made them sick. A thick layer of carbon also used to
settle beneath their utensil due to use of firewood
which was difficult to remove. It was also
time-consuming. Firewood used to get wet during the
monsoon and it became difficult to ignite a fire for
cooking food. Now the women of these villages have got
rid of all these problems.
In
Mehrai village alone, biogas is being used for cooking
food by 28 families saving 56 tonnes of wood costing
about Rs 22400 yearly. During the current fiscal, as
many as 560 biogas plants have been installed in
several villages while a target has been set to
install 750 biogas plants by July 2009. Apart from
giving gas, the biogas plants also produce slurry
which is used as manure in the fields.
The
state government has extended all possible help for
installing biogas plants by providing subsidy. The
multi-utility of biogas plants has caught the fancy of
the villagers and they are installing biogas plants
one after another.
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