Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab’s first bio-CNG plant starts paddy straw collection

PATIALA: Punjab’s first stubble-based bio-CNG plant has started collection of paddy straw from the agricultural fields from its surrounding villages even as the commissioning of the plant is expected for January 2022. The officials at the compressed biogas (CBG) plant at Bhutal Kalan village of Lehragaga in Sangrur have already collected around 10,000 MT of paddy straw for their operations to produce biogas and manure. The plant is one of the largest CBG plants that will produce more than 33 tonnes of CBG or bio-CNG per day and is capable of collecting and utilizing over 1 lakh tonne of paddy residue each year. However, following delay in the harvest this year due to untimely rains, the authorities at the CBG plant are forced to collect the paddy straw from the area falling in more than 20 km radius against the 10 to 15 km radius plan. Ashish Kumar, CEO at CBG plant, said, “We have a target to collect 30,000 MT of paddy residue this year and we will achieve it easily as we had already collected 10,000 to 15,000 MT of paddy straw. We are collecting paddy stubble for the operations during the year whereas the wheat stubble may also be collected in April-May. The commissioning will be in January 2022. We would have collected stubble from 10 to 15 km radius of our plant, but due to delay in harvesting this time, we had to collect stubble from villages beyond 25 kms of distance. We have all the straw collecting machines owned by the company with an investment of Rs 12 crore. Next year, more machines will be purchased. These machines are operated by the staff, around 60 in number, hired by the company for stubble collection and round bales each weighing 450 kg are piled.” The experts had vied that the farmers in the area would prefer to burn their paddy straw instead of waiting for the collection of their stubble by the CBG plant. The farmers claimed they were waiting to sow the wheat crop from the mid of November but the harvesting of paddy was already delayed. The farmer leader in Bhutal Kalan village claimed that around 50% of paddy was harvested in their village as the rains had hit paddy harvesting. BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) block leader Harjit Singh Bhola said, “The window between harvesting of paddy and sowing of next crop, wheat, is too short now and farmers do not prefer to wait for long for the stubble collecting machines of biogas plant. The initiative of the biogas plant to collect stubble free of cost from the farmers is commendable, but due to rains and delay in harvesting this year, the farmers would burn stubble instead of leaving it for biogas plant or incorporating into the fields for decomposition. Moreover, some farmers revealed that the plant owners collect dry stubble only, but at this time the moisture is high following delay in harvesting.” After Bhutal Kalan, the CBG plants in Fatehgarh Sahib and Khanna (Ludhiana) will be operational and will produce 2.25 tonnes and 12 tonnes of CBG, respectively. In Punjab, the setting up of 23 CBG plants are in the pipeline till 2023-24, and all these CBG plants collectively will utilize nearly 9 lakh tonnes of paddy. PPCB member secretary Karunesh Garg said, “Under the ex-situ management of the state government, the biogas plant has started collecting paddy residue. We are making a lot of efforts by creating awareness among the farmers. Recently, we launched a green brigade from Punjabi University for awareness. We hope the area under fire will decline again this year.”

The Times of India

2021-11-02

Ludhiana