In the present context, where aristocrats and businessmen dream of making it big in the manufacturing and service sector, Chitturi Venkata Krishna Narasimha Rao has taken up the work of creating dairy colonies in villages in north coastal Andhra Pradesh to spearhead another white revolution.
“It would be wrong to say ‘white revolution', as my focus is to make dairy colonies self sustainable not only by way of producing and marketing more milk but by making the units integrated and profitable by using the by-products,” he said. According to him a day will come when milk will become the by-product.
Elaborating the design, he said, “The dung and urine if collected systematically can be used to produce biogas from which electricity and cooking gas can be generated. The digested slurry from the biogas plant can be used as fertiliser for various crops. The slurry can also be processed and separated to form solids and liquids and the solids can be further processed to make organic fertilisers.”
The entire process is just not described on paper; Mr. Narasimha has replicated the same in his farm.
His farm has about 350 animals (both cows and buffalos combined) and the dairy is attached to a biogas plant. The plant has six digesters and the generation varies between 600 to 800 KW of power a day. While a part of the gas is converted to power, the remaining is processed to produce green cooking gas.
Fertiliser
He has designed a system to flow a part of the digested slurry to feed his in-house agriculture farm as organic fertiliser and the remaining is converted to solid organic fertiliser. The liquid or the water that is separated from the slurry is utilised to grow azolla crop that acts as a good nutrient feed for the cattle. A part of the slurry is also used to feed the in-house vermicompost facility.
“The entire farm is integrated. Right from fodder to animal feed and from vermicompost to green energy is produced here, and this is the model that I have been advocating with the farmers,” he said.
On dairy colonies, he said, “The villagers should pool in their animals at one place to build such an integrated farm. Apart from producing good quality milk and marketing it at a better price, they become self sufficient by producing their own high quality fodder, make money by selling the organic fertiliser and vermicompost produce and have their own green power and cooking gas.”
By conducting seminars, he has been able to educate about 33 farmers so far and has written a book on the topic. He has installed a milk processing and packaging unit in his farm and sells the milk and ghee under the brand name Madhura.
Multi-faceted
This is just one facet of Mr. Narasimha Rao. Being a mechanical engineer from REC (now NIT) Warangal, he forayed into the education sector in 1977, by setting up Sri Prakash Vidya Niketan in Tuni. Over the last three decades, he has established about 16 educational institutions in various places such as Tuni, Payakaraopeta, Visakhapatnam and Rajahmundry, covering the areas of school, degree, engineering and polytechnic education. Today, about 13,000 students study at his various institutions. “Starting English medium schools in rural areas was a challenge. Today, I feel proud when I come to understand that a student from my institution and from a rural place like Tuni is employed at NASA or Microsoft in the US. Giving back something to society was my objective,” said Mr. Narasimha Rao.
