Sivaganga’s Kanjirangal village elated over PM’s praise for waste-to-electricity project
MADURAI: The local community of Kanjirangal, a village panchayat in Sivaganga district on Sunday, was delighted after Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his monthly radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’ lauded the efforts of community participation, which helped generate electricity from waste collected at the village.
Kanjirangal, a small village, has blazed a trail in turning waste into valuable resources and much the likes of the villagers, the Prime Minister endorsed the initiative that resulted in setting up of a biogas plant. A jubilant Manimuthu, president of Kanjirangal panchayat, wondered, saying that the Prime Minister despite his busy schedule noticed this rural development. He said most of the waste were generated from local sources, including markets, rotten fruits, vegetables and leftovers from marriage halls. All these wastes help feed the biogas plant, which generates electricity, which caters to keep 20 street lights burning and run six battery equipped garbage collection vehicles. He said it requires 200 kg of waste to generate electricity daily.
“We raise awareness and educate our community to stop dumping wastes on streets and ask people to wait until we collect and segregate wastes. Now, the entire village makes a habit of waiting for sanitary workers to take out the household garbage. It’s the first of its kind initiative in India and added that credit should go to Sivaganga Collector P Madhusudhan Reddy, who’s instrumental in this initiative. The Collector said this project launched this month, is modeled based on his initiative when he’s Joint Commissioner of Health in Greater Chennai Corporation where it’s conceptualized on a large scale. On the project established under the ‘Rurban’ scheme, he said its process is known as ‘anaerobic digestion.’
Two tonnes of segregated waste could be processed a day. Since Kanjirangal is close to Sivaganga town, which’s located in the midst of four villages, all wastes generated from markets and hotels in these villages could also be taken to the biogas plant and processed. Currently, 800 kg of waste could be sourced.