Background

In order to facilitate a healthy biomass briquetting industry for rural / semi-rural India, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) launched an initiative to identify the various factors that affect the sector, and to come up with suitable solutions for the same. WII was entrusted with assessing the impediments the sector faces in the northern part of the country.

Activities

The project team visited different biomass briquetting facilities in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and conducted a round of discussions with the manufactures. The key issues that were touched upon were availability of adequate biomass and its market prices, price mechanism for retail of biobriquettes and financial incentives from the government for briquette producers.

The study was thus conclusive in highlighting the concerns faced by the manufacturers and the assistance they wished to receive from the government. A detailed report on the findings was compiled and submitted to MNRE, which is expected to factor them in before it announces a national biomass briquetting policy. It is expected that the report acts as an evidence to ensure informed policy decision making by MNRE.