To mitigate the situation arising out of crop residue burning in Punjab and Haryana, the Union Government will be setting up the first Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) plant in North India in Lehragaga of Sangrur and is expected to be commissioned in March 2021. The CBG plant, being set up under the ‘Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT), will convert straw into CNG.
According to some sources, plant authorities have started collecting paddy straw to store it at the plant and 300 tonnes of stubble will be used per day in the plant to produce 31 tonne CBG/day.
5 more plants will be coming up in Punjab but they may not be commissioned before 2022. When all these plants are commissioned, they will have a capacity of 70 tonne CBG/day and will consume 2.5 LMT paddy straw per annum.
“RBI has included CBG in its list of priority sector lending and the SBI has started loan schemes and oil companies have agreed on a buy-back rate of Rs 46/kg for five years. The CBG projects once commissioned will create a market for straw and provide farmers an incentive not to burn the resource.” said former ED at Indian Oil and currently bio fuels adviser to the company.
Environmentalist and ED of Centre for Science and Environment Sunita Narain said, “Degradation of environment through various means including burning of stubble is worrisome. To overcome it, there is a need to provide income to farmers for the residue and improve environmental sustainability. We need to provide machinery to farmers for in-situ management, provide value to biomass as farmers may not burn if they are paid for the straw.”
