BSS, Gaibandha :
Low-cost biogas, an alternative fuel for cooking purpose became popular among the people in different areas of the district.
For the last couple of years biogas has been in use for cooking purpose and the slurry, the main effluent of the biogas plant, as organic fertiliser for boosting agriculture production.
People of the area, who never thought of having gas for cooking purpose are now using that for full domestic purposes. Currently, around 31 rural families use biogas instead of firewood for cooking purpose.
Pourashava Mayor Md Shamsul Alam said biogas production in Gaibandha Municipality through combined waste management system is an epoch-making initiative of the organizations working for improvement of urban and rural environment.
The long-term project is being implemented jointly by Gaibandha Municipality, Practical Action, Bangladesh (PA,B) and Sinnomul Mahila Samity from 2011, he added.
He stressed the need for producing biogas from domestic wastes in a larger scale to eliminate energy problem and to check pollution.
A biogas plant can be set up spending Taka 10,000 at each farm house that would help protect arable fields in the country beside producing huge amount of compost fertilizer, said a survey.
The electricity produced from biogas would also meet the irrigation demand of the country, the survey revealed.
Biogas provides clean energy from organic wastes against a small labour input and it is a low cost process.
Most of the users expressed their satisfaction over the functioning of biogas plants as this alternative fuel at much cheaper in price than firewood and any other fossil fuel.
Rokhsana Parveen, 50, a housewife of Banirajan area in the municipality area, has been using biogas for last three years. She cooks meals for her nine-member family twice a day.
She said the price of firewood, kerosene and LPG cylinder has become unbearable.
“With biogas I feel comfortable, particularly because it does not cause me coughing, and does not pollute my kitchen room environment,” she said.
“Now we do not cook in smoke surrounding. Darkness has also gone away from our house,” said housewife Jahanara Begum of the same area.
Mahobul Islam, Senior Environment Officer of PA,B and also the Manager of ‘Waste to Biogas Project’, said hardly 25 per cent of the population in Bangladesh are enjoying access to the natural gas supply and more or less 75 percent are totally deprived of this service.
Aimed at overcoming the energy problem, he urged the government and private sector to give special emphasis on building large -capacity biogas plants throughout the country.
