120 women farmers in two villages of Nilgiris district get bio-gas units to promote sustainable farming

120 women beneficiary households in Udhagamandalam inaugurated 2 cubic meter Flexi bio-gas units on Saturday. The project is funded by NDDB and IIL, with a budget of ₹112 lakh. It aims to provide affordable and clean energy options to women farmers, make dairy farming sustainable, and encourage use of bio-slurry-based organic fertilisers. The project will benefit 120 women in 8 villages of Gudalur and Pandalur taluks, providing an average of 4 hours of cooking fuel per day. The slurry released by the bio-gas plant is used by farmers

Flexi bio-gas units, to benefit 120 households of woman, were inaugurated in Udhagamandalam on Saturday.

The installed bio-gas units were inaugurated by Meenesh Shah, chairman, National Diary Development Board (NDDB) and Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), in the presence of K. Anand Kumar, MD of IIL, P. Rajesh Kumar, assistant general manager of Aavin, Tamil Nadu Co-operative Milk Producers Federation and M. Jayaraman, general manager of the Nilgiris District Co-operative Milk Producers Union.

The units were installed under the aegis of Go Green manure management, an initiative undertaken by the NDDB and under a corporate social responsibility initiative of IIL. The total budget of the programme is ₹112 lakh, used for the installation of flexi bio gas units of two cubic metres, at the 120 households. The second phase of the initiative involves processing the bio-slurry into organic solid and liquid manure, by the installtion and commissioning of a slurry processing unit.

The primary objective of the project is to provide affordable and clean energy options to women farmers for cooking and making dairy farming sustainable for farmers by encouraging the use of bio-slurry and bio-slurry-based organic fertilisers, while the limiting the use of chemical fertilisers.

The project will benefit women in eight villages of Gudalur and Pandalur taluks of the Nilgiris and is being given to the women on a 100 per cent grant basis.

The installed bio gas plant currently provides an average of around four hours of cooking fuel per day. The slurry released by the bio-gas plant is used by farmers on their field.