Success
Stories
MAKING
ECONOMIC SENSE
By
Naresh Newar
Freelance Journalist
SUNSARI—Farmer Jit Narayan Chaudhary
and his wife Jagita relax in their kitchen and start calculating
their household expenses. They managed to save more this month.
They are jubilant with the news.
“We’re glad that we took the initiative
for installing the biogas plant in our village,” says Chaudhary,
who was the first villager in his Dumartoka village of Khanar Village
Development Committee (VDC) in Sunsari district to invest in the
biogas technology when representatives from biogas companies were
visiting each household to educate and promote the villagers about
the biogas technology and how it could change their lives.
For poor farmers in his village, the initial
cost of Rs 30,000 to install a biogas plant system, including a
cooking stove is quite a huge amount. However, the Biogas Support
Programme (BSP), a national programme implemented by Biogas Sector
Partnership –Nepal (BSP-Nepal) gave him such a good financial
plan that he decided to try it out.
BSP is currently funded by Directorate General
for International cooperation of the Netherlands (DGIS) of Netherlands
government through Netherlands Development Organisation in Nepal
(SNV/Nepal), government of Nepal through Alternative Energy Promotion
Centre (AEPC) and government of Germany through the Kreditanstalt
fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) of Germany. The programme, which provides
technical as well as subsidy for families to build biogas plants
in rural areas, has helped a large number of low-income rural households
to make biogas technology affordable and accessible to a great extent.
A poor farmer himself, Chaudhary managed to
build his own plant with subsidy of Rs 6,500 provided by BSP. All
he needed was an additional Rs 12,000, which he managed to get a
low-interest loan from a Grameen Bank to whom he would repay in
50 weeks.
In addition, he also received an additional
subsidy of Rs 1,500 from BSP. In 2006, ‘additional subsidy
programme’ was initiated in collaboration between BSP and
relevant development organizations especially with Grameen Banks
to provide extra subsidy to help the poor who had at least one cattle
and small plot of land. Those living in the remote hill districts
would receive the highest subsidy of Rs 3,500, and the families
in the Terai would receive Rs 1,500 and those in the hills would
get Rs 2,500. Over 400 households have already received the support.
Today, many farmers like Chaudhary are glad
they made the decision of building their own plants, as they are
able to reap more benefits than they had imagined.
Saving from biogas
“The biogas technology has made so much
difference to us. Surely, all families who own biogas plants will
feel the same way,” says Chaudhary. Over the past one year,
Chaudhary has been able to reduce his household expenditure by switching
from wood to biogas for fuel ever since he installed his own biogas
plant in his house at his Dumartoka village of Sunsari district.
Chaudhary used to spend over Rs 60 everyday
to buy firewood. Now, due to biogas, his family does not have to
spend anymore money to buy any firewood as fuel from biogas suffices
to cook food for the family. Within few months of installing his
biogas plant, he was not only able to save enough money but he also
sparked interest among other villagers who saw that the investment
on the biogas plant was really worthwhile.
“The neighbors often come to us and
ask for advice as they have seen how easy it is to save money with
the help of biogas plant,” explains Chaudhary’s wife
smiling with pride. They were the same people who had cautioned
her not to risk their savings by investing in a biogas technology
about which they were sceptical. They believed that biogas would
not benefit the farmers.
Today, more houses in the village and other
areas in the district are fast building biogas plants with help
of biogas companies who help them in the construction. Now even
these companies are competing with each other to market their technical
services to the poor households.
Old stories but never stale
Such stories about biogas are already old
in the country but its consistent success among the users continues
to inspire more people to build their own plants everyday from the
terai to the hills and the mountain areas.
Unti this year, the number of biogas plant
users has reached 172,505, according to BSP-Nepal. With over 98
percent of plants operating, BSP has been a world model for successful
biogas programmes.
“All we did was to provide guidance
and boost the motivation of the villagers so that they could decide
how best to use their cattle dung to clean gas and improved manure,”
says Saroj Rai, executive director of BSP-Nepal.
In this district alone, around 9,000 families
have already built gobar gas plants under BSP with technical help
from biogas companies like Public Energy Development Company and
Gobar Gas Tatha Krisi Yantra Bikas.
“Demand is even increasing as people
have started to realise the immediate positive impact the biogas
has made in the lives of many farming villagers,” explains
Dilip Kumar Bhandari, a biogas expert involved in the sector for
over three decades (Are you sure …. for so long?).
“Demand is even increasing as people
have started to realize the immediate positive impact biogas has
made in the lives of many farming villagers,” explains Dilip
Kumar Bhandari, biogas expert.
Pro-poor programmes
Despite
the success of the biogas programme, there are many challenges to
make this technology accessible for especially those who need it
the most, namely the poor, who are the ones using most of the forest
resources as they have no alternative.
The cost for complete plant construction and
cooker costs over Rs 30,000 but the farmers have to pay only half
of it due to the government subsidy through additional financial
aid of German and Dutch governments through KFW and DGIS/SNV respectively.
“The provision of subsidy has helped
many families to own their own plants,” says Tilak Shrestha,
manager of Kantipur Gobar Gas in Mohattari district, where his company
has built over 500 plants in the last three years.
The poor families still have to find a huge
amount of cash and most of them get low-interest loans from a Grameen
Bank at the rate of 12 percent but they still need to show enough
property to guarantee the timely payback in 50 weeks. If the client
was poor, the loan from a Grameen bank would be provided with a
group collateral and asset would not be required. He or she would
also be provided with an additional subsidy.
But not all hope is lost, say biogas managers
who believe that there are a lot of good options. One, the biogas
users have formed their own groups and are already helping their
poor neighbors to guarantee Grameen Bank for their sake. In addition,
the Community Forest Users Groups (CFUGs) are also helping to build
toilets to be attached to biogas plants. For instance, Parsahi Arne
Bhulke CFUG in Parsahi village of Mohattari has already helped to
build plants for nearly 60 families.
The poorest families in the context of biogas
include those who have insufficient land to farm and do not own
any cattle. This means that they would not even have the most important
and basic raw material, namely cattle dung. In addition, they lack
access to water and most of all enough land to build the plant.
Our ultimate objective is to ensure that our
programme reaches the poor but it is quite difficult to reach the
poorest now,” says Rai. Besides direct approaches like providing
additional subsidy for the poor, in cooperation with the Grameen
Banks, BSP-Nepal is also linking up its programme with other rural
development and poverty-related initiatives for better pro-poor
orientation.
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