“After installing the system for rainwater harvesting, water supply has been a big relief,” she says. Though she still has separate costs for drinking water, the water collected in the tanks, especially during the rainy season, lasts for four months. Collected in two separate water tanks of 1,000 liters and 500 liters, Basnet carefully directed the rain to the tanks by building a nine-meter drain around the transparent sheet on her terrace.[break]
Asmita Manandhar
The Sahari Gharelu Biogas plant is the newest project brought into action by Alternative Energy Promotion Centre. The compact biogas plant that produces energy which can be used to minimize the use of LPG in cooking is also useful for waste management. During the installation of the plant, AEPC provides Rs 10000 as subsidy.
The Department for Water Supply and Sewerage has produced some technical guidance on the application and construction of rainwater systems. The KMC also provides subsidy for residences for installing rainwater harvesting systems. The KMC either provides a facility of reimbursing10% of the building permit or providing Rs 10,000, either one being the cheaper deal, for installing rainwater collection system in a household.
Rabin Man Shrestha, environment division chief at KMC, says that simple means like those of Basnet’s for collecting rainwater counts for such harvesting whether it follows the specific technical directions provided by the government or not. “After an application is submitted, we send a team to examine the system and if found satisfactory, we pass the application for subsidy,” he says.
But he says that such applications are few in number; only four applications were submitted in the last fiscal year. Although other KMC staffs claimed that the subsidies are provided to anyone who has installed rainwater harvesting system, Shrestha says that they have only been providing subsidies to newly built homes that are yet to pay their house permit.
Basnet, on the other hand, says that she has no knowledge of any technical guidance provided by the government or the possibility of subsidy.
“I’ll ask for the possibility of subsidy when I pay my next house tax. But with the attitudes in government offices, I doubt they will offer me any help,” she says.
The general convention of people to shy away from any government assistance due to slow service and multiple referees to different departments even to complete a small task is evident in the rainwater harvesting system as well. In addition, another rule of providing subsidy to newly built houses has also limited the significance of subsidy and promotion of rainwater harvesting system.
But revising such methods, the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC), a government body tasked with promoting natural sources of energy, has not only been providing subsidy for installing Sahari Gharelu Biogas Plant but are also offering the required technical assistance for the plant installation. The program that started since the last fiscal year aims at promoting the usage of waste products to generate cooking gas in urban households.
AEPC has been providing similar assistance and subsidy in the rural areas of the country but now even the urban household can be benefited by its services. Sahari Gharelu Biogas plant is a compact biogas plant that requires an area of only one cubic meter. It costs Rs 25,000 of which Rs 10,000 is provided by AEPC to every household as subsidy.
Like rainwater harvesting, the biogas plant also aims at helping urban residents to deal with the problem of expensive cooking gas which is also scarce at certain times of the year.
But the installation of the plant will not completely generate cooking gas enough for regular daily usage. “The generation of cooking gas will mainly depend upon the amount of waste and the weather. In favorable weather in the capital, it can generate gas that can last to an hour or 30 minutes,” says Harkaman Limbu, urban biogas consultant at AEPC.
Though the amount of gas produced is not sufficient for the regular requirement of a household, Limbu claims that such a biogas plant has multiple advantages. “The biogas plant is not just useful for producing cooking gas but is also an effective means of managing organic waste products,” he says.
Dharmadas Amatya, 56, a resident of Bijuli Bazaar also agrees with Limbu on a biogas plant’s usability in waste management. “I used to dig pit in my garden to make use of the organic waste products. But since I’ve installed a plant, not only I can easily manage the waste products but can also generate cooking gas out of it. To top it off, you are also awarded considerable subsidy,” he says, unable to hide the excitement in his tone.
Limbu also adds that many people who installed the plant were more interested in the waste management. “The first step is the management of organic waste products, then after producing cooking gas, a liquid residue is discharged from the plant, known as slurry. That residue also can be used as an organic fertilizer in kitchen garden,” he says.
This fiscal year, AEPC was able to install biogas plants at 26 households in Kathmandu. But Limbu is confident that many people and families will be interested in installing such plants in the coming fiscal year and he believes that the government subsidy works as a huge motivation to the capital’s residents.
“There’s no application process at all. The household owners only need to pay Rs 15,000 out of the total costs for the whole process. There’s no hassle at all,” he says.
The alternative sources for basic necessities such as water and cooking gas have drawn a lot of attention in recent times. It is more important in areas like Kathmandu where these problems are even uglier. Though the government has plans to help people operate these projects, lack of promotion and awareness has been impeding the efficient implementation of such plans. The government’s idea of providing subsidy for these alternative sources is commendable, but along with the subsidy, offering technical consultations for the installations of such alternative projects can be more helpful.
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