Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has congratulated and felicitated the entire scientific team of CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), TS department of marketing and Ahuja Engineering Services for executing the ‘vegetable waste to gas plant’ at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Agriculture Market in Bowenpally here on Tuesday.
The Governor visited the plant along with IICT Director S. Chandrasekhar, TS agriculture secretary B. Janardhan Reddy, chief scientist A.G. Rao and others, following the Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioning about the innovative biogas plant in the market yard in his Sunday radio address ‘Mann Ki Baat’.
CSIR-IICT has developed and patented the technology to convert the waste to wealth, based on ‘Anaerobic Gas lift Reactor (AGR) for generation of methane-rich biogas and nutrient-rich bio-manure. The plant was installed as a ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ initiative jointly funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and TS marketing department. It has a capacity to treat 10 tonnes of market and vegetable waste every day generating 400-500 units of electricity, and replace about 30 kg of LPG on a daily basis. About 1,400 tonnes of market and vegetable waste has been used for generation of 34,000 m3 of biogas converted to 32,000 units of electricity.
More than 600 kg of LPG has been replaced and about 700 kilolitres of bio manure was produced from the plant which is made available to the farmers for use. Average electricity bill of the agricultural market committee got reduced to ₹1.5 lakh from ₹3 lakh per month, explained innovator Dr. Rao.
DBT has sanctioned another project for installation of five more plants — while a 500 kg/day capacity has already been commissioned at Erragadda vegetable market, remaining four plants at Gudimalkapur (5 tonne/day), Gaddiannaram (5 tonne/day) , Alwal (500 kg/day) and Saroornagar (500 kg/day) market yards are underway. CSIR-IICT is now making efforts to install biogas-based CNG plants for replacement of conventional vehicular fuel with renewable green fuel, he added.
