Fading fragrances of Kannauj may soon go green
Conversion of wood furnaces into bio gas ones to cut costs, protect environment
For centuries, Kannauj has been India’s perfume capital. To this day, the town’s romance with the world of natural fragrances and flavours endures. But the industry is full of smoke and soot, as a few ounces of fragrance need quintals of wood—an environment and health hazard.
Now, the Bio Energy Mission Cell (BEMC) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), UP are out to change this, through conversion of the traditional wood furnaces into bio gas ones--smokeless, tearless, soot-free, healthy and above all profitable for the users.
Kannauj bur ns tonnes of wood each day in its nearly 125 perfume units, where scents are distilled by heating flowers in massive degs (stills). Each of the 125 perfume units has multiple degs, the total coming to nearly 8,500. One deg burns nearly 1.5 quintals of wood each day and the industry works 350 days a year. This means a lot of tree felling. “An owner spends wood at least worth R 1,000 per deg, while the cost of bio gas would come to just R 800 per week per deg,” said PS Ojha, state coordinator of MEMC. But the owner will have to shell out R 2 lakh per deg for making an underground bio gas plant.
Ojha said that a prototype bio gas plant for perfume distillation was already in place at the institute of Flavours and Fragrances Development Corporation (FFDC), Kannauj. It had been tested and would become operational in 10 days, to showcase it to the perfume industry.
This model of Bio Energy Mission Cell is simple, clean and maintenance free. It needs only 20% of gobar (cattle dung) unlike the traditional gobar gas plants that require massive amount of dung. The rest of the material to ferment gas could just be any biomass—plant wastes, planktons like water hyacinth, bio waste out of kitchens or vegetable markets and mandis and above all the waste generated out of biomass that comes out after the essential oils from petals are distilled.
Neither the BEMC nor the DST would build the plants. They would run a training programme to train some batches of
MUGHAL PATRONAGE MADE THE PERFUME INDUSTRY IN KANNAUJ FLOURISH. IT IS ALSO RENOWNED FOR MAKING NATURAL FRAGRANCES LIKE ROSE AND KEWRA FOR ADDING FLAVOURS TO FOOD
local Kannauj masons/youth in plant construction. The owner would have to engage those trained people for plant construction.
USING ORGANIC FLOWERS
Though the fragrances and flavours produced by Kannauj scent industry do not go through any chemical process and chemicals are not used, the flowers are not really organic. Insecticides, pesticides and fertilisers are used in the flowers farms from where the petals come. But the slurry that would come out of bio gas plant is an excellent bio-fertiliser. Thus the itra units can sell the slurry to farmers to make the flowers organic. Organic itra would increase international market value of Kannauj itra.
Kannauj perfume industry is struggling due to higher production cost and lowering demand due to increased use of synthetic flavours and fragrances or lowered export. Biogas would bring down fuels cost drastically and increase profits.
Even if half of the units switch to biogas, Kannauj just might become India’s biggest biogas cluster.
Kannauj has been chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s Lok Sabha constituency and is now his wife Dimple Yadav’s constituency. From time to time, both have been assuring the perfume industry’s emancipation.
CLAIM TO FAME
Kannauj’s rise to fame as India’s perfume capital began a century before Grasse emerged as France’s leading fragrance centre in the 17th century. Though the French city has now lost its traditional system of ‘enfleurage’ for perfume extraction from flowers to modern methods, Kannauj retains its ancient technique. Not many know that Noorjehan, the Mughal queen, discovered and developed the process for the preparation of attar from roses. This laid the foundation for distillation of all kinds of attars from flowers or herbs. Before that, sandal, musk, camphor or saffron were used as aroma or perfume with isolation and extraction of the scents in them.
Mughal patronage made the perfume industry in Kannauj flourish. It is also renowned for making natural fragrances like rose and kewra for adding flavours to food. “We (people from Kannauj) go to Odisha to make kewra perfume, because the flowers cannot be transported to Kannauj for processing. Only fresh flowers and herbs are used to distill fragrances. We travel with our paraphernalia all the way (to Odisha) because our expertise, experience and equipment are not available anywhere else,” says Abdul Malik Rauf, owner of KS Shaikh Abdul Rauf factory that was established in 1818.