Hassan’s Bio-Fuel Model May Be a Game-Changer

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October 23, 2015

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by Dipankar Chakraborty (Bangalore Mirror) This may reduce country’s dependence on imported fossil fuel to meet energy needs, say experts

With more than one lakh trained farmers and local stakeholders from across 2,039 of the total of 2,584 villages, Karnataka’s Hassan district is turning over a new leaf in India’s quest for an alternative bio-fuel to reduce the country’s dependence on imported fossil fuel to meet its ever growing energy needs.

Known as the Hassan Rural Bio-fuel Model, the pioneering project, an initiative of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, is unique in many ways.

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” … Farmers are encouraged to plant trees producing non-edible oil bearing seeds such as Honge, Neem, Jatropa, Mahua, Simarouba, Karanja, etc. in non-cultivable land.”

Farmers can either sell the seeds to local state-run expeller units for extracting fuel, or produce the oil themselves in mini hand-operated or motorised single-phase expellers. The extracted fuel can then be sold to soap-makers or other industrial users. The fuel can also be used on their tractors and irrigations pump-sets, Dr Prasanna (Dr K T Prasanna, Professor, Principal Investigator & Biofuel Chair, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science) says.

As part of the Hassan Model, 70 villages have been christened as Complete Biofuel Village. “In each of the households in the villages a bio-fuel generating tree has been planted. Since its implementation, the bio-fuel model has been responsible in the generation of income by farmers worth Rs 2.5 crore per year,” adds Dr Prasanna.

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The World Agro Forestry Centre has acknowledged the park’s efforts to develop and promote biofuel. It seeks to now replicate the Hassan Biofuel Model across districts in Karnataka and other states of India. “Not only states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttarakhand have evinced keen interest in replicating the Hassan model in their states but also some of the major African countries have sought help in the replicating the model in their respective countries,” says Dr Prasanna. READ MORE

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