People Piloting Winrock International India’s Biofuels Initiative in Chhattisgarh Shramdaan 1st Camp

WII with support from the British High Commission is implementing a new project focusing on producing bio-diesel from plantations of tree-borne oil seeds (TBOs) such as Jatropha curcas and Pongamia pinnata. These plantations will be grown on arid land and wastelands in villages, and oil will be extracted from the seeds. The oil will be converted into bio-diesel and fed into diesel generating sets which will produce the desired electricity. The project aims to promote biofuels for improving access to clean and affordable energy to the rural population in India. The objective of this particular Pilot Project is to demonstrate the technical and financial viability of running Distributed Generation sets using vegetable oil as fuel in place of conventional diesel to provide electricity in remote villages.

The community mobilization camp for participatory work in Jatropha plantation was organized in Ranidehra and Bairakh villages of Bodla block in the Kabirdham district of Chhattisgarh on the April 28 and April 29 2005 respectively. The main objective was to achieve involvement of the villagers in the project implementation. It is a project driven by the people, of the people and for the people being facilitated by WII.

The project entails producing bio-diesel from plantations of tree borne oil seeds such as Jatropha. The oil extracted from these seeds will be converted into biodiesel and fed into diesel generating sets which will produce electricity for the village. The camp was thus focused at speeding up the pits digging process by the villagers on their own land and field boundaries for large scale Jatropha plantation before the onset of monsoon.

The camp was set up early in the morning when the volunteers (a group of 8-10 youth was formed to over see the pits digging as volunteers) from the village itself with the WII field staff guiding and supervising the digging process.

The result was that more than 45 households of the total 118 in Ranidhera village dug about 2000 pits and villagers were enthusiastic and carried on the work in the second half of the day as well despite the summer heat.

In Bairakh village around 20 new households of the total 60 started digging and achieved 1000 pits on that day.

The two-day shramdaan camp organized in Chhattisgarh ended with lunch and audio/video entertainment for the villagers.

Consequently it has brought the WII field staff and the villagers closer to ensuring electrification in these villages. Further the volunteer group formed only to serve the camp program continues to cooperate with the field staff.

The numbers of pits are increasing day by day and the program is in a position to enter the first stage of plantation!

1- There has been a work ethic in India which is now being revived. It has been called shramdaan or literally voluntary labour. Communities join hands to work for the betterment of the community itself and that is also a form of contribution to the land that sustains them.

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