National Dailies

A National workshop on 'Community Conserved Biodiverse Areas in India' is being held at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) from November 21 to 23. The workshop is being jointly organized by the Kalparviksh Environment Action Group, Indian Social Institute (New Delhi), Winrock International India and IIFM with additional funding from the Ford Foundation. According to a press statement, the objective of the workshop is to provide a forum for individuals, government and non-government organizations and other agencies to discuss community-based biodiversity conservation in India.

The recommendations that emerge out of this workshop will be incorporated in the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan being formulated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Care for clean air? Care for green environment? Then care to share, for India's forest cover is rapidly degrading. Sow the seeds today to reap the fruit tomorrow...

Rapid degradation of forests in India is leading not only to ecological problems of rain and climatic changes but also starvation deaths, large-scale migration to cities, and a disintegration of social structure. What is the solution? Will forest regeneration help? Can the community contribute?

These and many such questions on the role of forests for rural development were answered at a two-day authors' workshop jointly organized by the Commonwealth Forestry Association (India Chapter), Winrock International India - a Delhi-based registered NGO working in forestry and water - and the Ford Foundation in New Delhi this past week.

Currently, around 23 per cent of the country's area (76.52 million hectares) is classified as forest land, which is almost in entirety owned and managed by the government. Nearly 17 per cent (12 million hectares) of this forest land has almost no tree cover and another 33 per cent (25 million hectares) has degraded cover. Which means less than half the forest land in India has dense forest, which is a matter of serious concern.

One of the reasons for the degradation of the forests is the acute dependence on the forests by people living in and around forests. About three-fourth of India's population lives in its 600,000 villages. Of these, an estimated 170,000 villages with a total population of 147 million are located in or around forests. The vast majority depends on forests for its daily needs of fuelwood, fodder, small timber for agricultural implements and house construction and even food and medicines.

Joint Forest Management (JFM), under which the forest department and the local community enter into an agreement to jointly protect and manage forest land adjoining villages and to share responsibilities and benefits, was launched in 1990.

The village community is represented through a body specifically formed for the purpose. The key principle is "Care and Share". Around 14 million hectares - over 18 per cent - of the country's forest land is under JFM.

"JFM is practised in 27 states, involving 62,000 village level committees, and affecting the lives of all sections of a village - women, SCs and STs, the head-load bearer, poor farmer, potter and even the landlord, says Dr Kinsuk Mitra from Winrock International India, an organization working extensively in forestry, including training of forest officers in JFM. To address this lacuna, eminent foresters from the government, NGOs working in forestry, community-based organizations, and media representatives decided to meet to discuss success and failures of introducing JFM in India and to document these experiences in the form of a book. In essence, the book will answer how far the JFM program has been able to successfully change the lives of around 150 million rural people which it addresses.

The various chapters of the book are being written by a wide range of participants in the JFM program, including the government, NGOs, village committee members, and beneficiaries, who have considerable experience of working with this approach and can lead diverse perspectives.

Ethanol is clean and green and also an alternative to CNG, reports Avijit Chakravarti

Riding autorickshaws was always a nightmare but now it's becoming worse. The authorikshaw drivers overcharge anything under the sun but now they have a readymade explanation - "What can we do? We have to wait for long hours outside the CNG filling stations, sometimes the whole night. And then, the vehicles can run for barely four to five hours and it's back to square one."

But they have a point. If they have to make up for the lost time, the only way out is to fleece the commuters. Sometimes the situation might take a different turn altogether. Recently, a newspaper report stated that an auto driver committed suicide because he could no longer fend his family. The residents of RK Puram now have a complaint that the CNG filling stations in their locality are fast turning into joints where the auto drivers consume liquor and drugs.

The policy makers are hell-bent on converting the Capital into a pollution free city but will someone tell them to come out of the CNG obsession? Instead, why not explore other alternatives to get rid of some of the CNG blues?

Some experts at Winrock International India, an NGO working on environmental issues, recently put their minds together and brought out a newsletter where they mentioned 'ethanol from waste' as an alternative fuel for the transport sector.

According to Bhawani Shankar Tripathy, communications officer of Winrock International India, ethanol is a biomass based renewable fuel. Currently, it is being produced from molasses - a thick, dark liquid drained from raw sugar during the refining process.

In the US it is produced from corn. There is great potential of it being produced using sugarcane bagasse or other biomass products. This bagasse is now being used as boiler fuel during co-generation projects. Thus, ethanol can be produced form biomass waste if adequate research is done.

The Winrock newsletter mentions that historically ethanol was one the first fuels used in the automobile engines and extensively used by Germany during the Second World War. It is being used in the pure form as well as in 22-24 per cent blends with gasoline. Today, 12 countries have the experience of using ethanol successfully.

"Since India is the second largest producer of sugarcane, it therefore holds great potential for not only producing ethanol but also exporting it," says Dr T R Jagdeesan, consultant with SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers), Chennai.

"While Brazil has a sound ethanol fuel policy and uses the fuel blend in its passenger cars, India despite an installed capacity for producing 2.7 billion litres of hydrous ethanol, produces less than half of it and is still far from framing any national policy on it. To begin with, India can use 10 per cent blend in existing engines without any modifications," he added.

"Actually CNG was never adequately researched as an appropriate transport fuel suitable to Indian conditions and demand in our research institutions and associates such as the transport authority, the petroleum industry and the auto- mobile manufacturers," explains Tripathy.

According to Dr Saroj Mishra, an expert in the field of energy studies, India is now beginning to wake up to the fact that an alternative is required. Research and demonstration projects have already begun. They were started as early as 1986 by the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES).

Mishra mentions in the newsletter that a number of tests have been con-ducted on the DTC buses using ethanol in diesel vehicles through the dual fuel mode. Retrofits were tried out by Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun and trial runs conducted through 25 Ashok Leyland buses.

Pilot projects to demonstrate the use of ethanol are also being conducted in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Tripathy points out that ethanol is now being floated as an alternative transport fueland Winrock is trying to create platform for experts and government officials to debate the issue.

In 1999, it organized a tour to Brazil for select Indian representatives to provide first hand experience of ethanol production and use in the transport sector. According to the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ram Naik, the ministry was serious about the ethanol issue and in view of the likely benefits that will accrue to the sugarcane farmers and the environmental benefits, the government may consider even suitable tax concessions at an appropriate time to promote this fuel.

An IIT research scholar sums it up rather nicely. "Our government is being penny wise but pound foolish. It might be thinking of cutting costs and making he environment pollution free. But that's hardly possible under the present circumstances. CNG is proving to be more expensive than petrol and full of hassles. Private transporters will not re1ent just like that. If they are losing money by standing in long queues, they are making it up by charging the extra bit from commuters. So will the harassed citizens take this all lying down?"

By initiating the process of setting up an ethanol technology center, academics and professionals associated with Winrock have taken a positive step in the direction by trying to work out an alternative. But as the research scholar from the IIT points out, "In India funds have never been a problem, proper policy-making has always been. Needless to say, one needs to be careful while venturing into an unknown territory. Otherwise, everything could end up as a small note in a government file.

N.K. Thingalaya, former chairman and managing director of Syndicate Bank, on Saturday said efforts should be made to popularize solar energy as an alternative source of power, especially in rural areas where villagers do not have access to electricity.

He was speaking after inaugurating the training program on financing solar appliances for branch managers of commercial banks and regional rural banks, organized by Syndicate Bank and Bharatiya Vikas Trust, Manipal, here.

Thingalaya painted a dismal picture of power generation using conventional sources like thermal and hydel, and said hooking nature was the best possible alternative as it was non-polluting.

He said thermal power, which contributed 80 per cent of the power generated, was polluting the environment and hydel power generation was limited in nature. Mega projects had their own problems, he said.

Thingalaya also pointed out that with bulk power being used by industrial and agricultural sectors and production centers being far from villages, hamlets were deprived the luxury of electricity. He said solar power was best suited for far-flung, rural areas.

Thingalaya noted that while the generation was 4.6 billion Kilo Watt Hour in 1951, it had increased to 82.7 billion KWH, but due to the rise in industries, population and transmission and distribution losses to the tune of 55 per cent, power supply to rural areas was a farfetched dream.

The inaugural function, was attended by B. Pramod, general manager, M. Dhanajaya, regional manager, G. Ananthram, lead district manager, Syndicate Bank, K.M. Udupa, executive director, Bharatiya Vikas Trust. Manipal and Ayesha Grewal, program officer, Winrock International India.

Winrock International (India) is planning to float a company in India with a corpus of $4 million. The company would be funding renewable energy projects. Seed capital for renewable energy projects will be provided by the proposed company's fund.

Winrock has got into an MoU with the United Western Bank Ltd. for this purpose. The bank would be providing financial assistance mostly in the form of term loans for entrepreneurs getting into energy projects.

Winrock will coordinate the development and execution of the fund which will be done through the branch network of United Western Bank. The bank will also consider creation of a parallel debt facility to complement the seed capital investment made by the fund. The seed capital will range from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 crore.

Winrock's program officer John Ryan and United Western Bank's executive director ST Gadre signed this agreement. The Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute will also participate in the project and would be offering technical consulting services to the projects.

Winrock is a non-profit organization based in the US. The Indian venture (Winrock International India) is aimed at developing small-scale renewable enterprises in rural areas. The fund is likely to start operations in two to three months time.