Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 7 October 2009

Biogas Plants

INDUSTRY BOOST TO KITCHEN WASTE

By Radhakrishna Rao

Kitchen waste need no longer be thrown in dustbins. Instead, it could be made good use of like some corporate houses and top firms are doing in the South. By setting up kitchen waste biogas plants at their complexes, managements have found a solution to disposing off food waste and importantly are able to generate clean energy for cooking in their canteens and cafeterias.

It started with the Mysore-based Centre For Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies (CREST), a unit of the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), getting involved in popularizing these biogas plants to provide cooking gas for households and corporate canteens. And it has made a beginning.

How does it work? According to its spokesman about 2-kg of kitchen waste including food left-overs used in the digester provide 500-gms of methane. And, installing a biogas plant is the easiest and most cost-effective way to make use of large piles of kitchen and other wastes. Depending upon the user requirement, the capacity of the biogas digester can be scaled up appropriately. Moreover, the residue in the digester turns out to be rich source of organic manure that can be profitably used in gardens and landscaping.

According to Enzen Global Solutions, which helps corporates and industry to set up biogas plants working on organic wastes including kitchen wastes, all organic wastes that include food, vegetables and leaves have the potential to generate methane gas in anaerobic conditions. The waste when fed into a digester starts the process of anaerobic digestion of organic material to yield methane through the process of bio-methanation. Apparently, “a 350-500-kg, plant can generate gas equal to one LPG cylinder.”

In Bangalore, many of the high-tech parks and corporate complexes are falling back on kitchen waste compact biogas plant. For instance, Velankanni Tech Park, which employs 4,000 people produces a waste food in its canteen to the extent of 100-kg plus per day. The waste food disposal here was mainly dependent on an external contractor. As such this tech park with the assistance of Enzen set up a kitchen waste biogas plant with a capacity of 250-kg wastes per day and an investment of Rs.50,000. “We are not only saving Rs.200 daily on the disposal of waste but also generating about 25-kg of cooking gas and saving about Rs.20,000 a month” says a manager.

Enzen is also assisting Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre in Bangalore to set up a 300-kg capacity biogas plants. “Large capacity plants can also earn additional revenue for carbon credits,” says Ram Kumar.

Similarly, the software and IT giant Wipro also operates a 3-tonne capacity biogas plant at its campus in the Electronics City of Bangalore. ”We saw this as a great opportunity to reuse the food wastes from various cafeterias in the campus. The plant converts about 200-kg of food wastes into biogas on a daily basis, and in the process saving upto 16 LPG cylinders at full load”, says its official at its Environmental Division. He also notes that “disposal of waste at the source of generation and low sludge production are other advantages”.

India’s leading software and consultancy firm TCS at its Yantra Park on the outskirts of Mumbai operates a one tonne per day capacity biogas plant. “Based on the success of this plant, we are planning similar projects at all our new campuses and also at existing facilities. Provision of biogas plant is now a part of standard design of new facilities” says its Head, health, safety and environment.

Interestingly, this concept of kitchen waste biogas plants is an offshoot of a much larger plan at the national level. The country’s National Project on Biogas Development, launched in 1981-82, which was subsequently renamed National Biogas and Manure Management has so far been able to get around 4-million family type biogas plants installed as against the existing potential for 12-million digesters. The programme’s objective is to provide clean and efficient fuel for cooking along with organic manure to rural households. Equally important goal is to mitigate the drudgery for the rural women and reduce pressure on forests as a source of fuel wood.

However, the achilles heel of this programme is use of cattle dung as the feedstock to generate methane, considered a non-polluting and carbon dioxide-neutral fuel. For a family type biogas digester (technology that takes advantage of the energy that is naturally present in animal waste and kitchen trash), to be in operational trim at least 40-kg of dung is required on a daily basis. This implies that a rural household should own at lest six-eight cattle heads.

Moreover, because the dung has a retention period of 40 days, the biogas plants need to be large. As such, limitations in terms of space, investment and absence of sufficient number of animals have gone to slow down the process of popularizing family type biogas plants in the country. And, what‘s more the process of mixing the dung with water to prepare the feedstock is considered a tedious job by many rural households.

With a view to overcome the limitations associated with the family type biogas digester, the Pune-based Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) came out with the innovative technology of alternative high calorie feedstock that is rich in starchy materials This feedstock has been found be more efficient in terms of the methane generated and also easy to handle. The feedstock that can be fed into these biogas digesters included kitchen waste, seed of any plants as well as oil cake of non edible oilseeds.

According to ARTI, this feedstock is capable of generating about 250-kg of methane per tonne of feedstock (on the basis of dry weight). More importantly, the reaction takes just one day to complete. It has been computed that the use of 2-kg of this feedstock on daily basis is good enough to provide cooking fuel needed by a family of five. More innovations are truly welcome. --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Events & Issues

New Delhi, 5 October 2009

FTA With ASEAN

MORE PAIN THAN GAIN FROM

By Dr P K Vasudeva

After six long years India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) finally managed to get their act together and sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as part of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. This is no doubt an important landmark in relations between the two sides since it will be instrumental in freeing the bilateral trade exchange, which was worth around $40 billion in 2008-09 and is targeted to hit $50 billion by 2010.

But the process leading up to the signing of the FTA has been a tortuous one, the pressures during the final lap perhaps being serious enough to bring forward the signing by a couple of months. According to one school of thought, New Delhi has been somewhat impatient to get on with its ‘policy of engagement’ with the eastern world so much so that the signing was advanced (it was earlier scheduled to be timed with the October ASEAN summit.)

The fact is that the India-ASEAN FTA stipulation on some plantation items has raised the hackles of the farm community, specially in the South, wherein Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has been forced to take the initiative to allay their fears by deputing senior Central Ministers to look into their problems. Apart from crude palm oil, items such as auto parts, textiles, electronics, food processing and milk products have been put on the zero-duty list, which will result in cheaper imports from ASEAN.

Consumers on this end of the Bay of Bengal might appreciate this but manufacturers have reason to worry. The Government is aware of this and has consequently approached the ADB for an Asian Integration Adjustment Assistance Facility for protection of the affected manufacturers. Some may find it difficult to understand why items (around 5,000) which had been put on the negative list in both the India-Singapore and India-Thailand free trade agreements have been put on the zero-duty list with ASEAN, indicating a difference in treatment not justified by ground realities.

Since ASEAN import duties are already on the low side compared to India’s — more than 75 per cent of Indian exports already enter the ASEAN market duty-free — the former stands to gain more from the FTA than India. Seen another way, while the ‘macro gain’ will be ASEAN’s, the ‘micro pain’ will be felt by India’, as is in fact being widely apprehended.

The good news, however, is the opening up of the services and investments sectors, negotiations on which are expected to be concluded by year-end. After all, ASEAN services imports were worth $180 billion in 2007, and India is well placed in terms of cost and expertise to exploit it effectively.

The moot point is that does the FTA in goods — agriculture and manufactured — with ASEAN promise gains to both the parties? While it will definitely provide greater market access to ASEAN of the biggest market in India, the same does not hold good for India vice versa in ASEAN markets of 10 countries in different stages of development.

The agreed modalities between the two parties and the interaction with trade policy analysts suggest that under the India-ASEAN FTA, New Delhi has offered to bring down the Customs duty on more than 7,300 tariff lines by end-December 2013. This would constitute over 71 per cent of the imports from ASEAN to India. Each tariff line is just a category of related products and might contain more than one item. Indian Customs tariff contain over 11,000 individual tariff lines.

The impact of such duty-free import regime on the Indian industry can be gauged by contrasting the items India deemed sensitive and opt not to offer any duty cut under the FTA individually with Singapore and Thailand with that of ASEAN now.

Since the Customs duty is being whittled down to zero on more than 70 per cent of products by end-December 2013, India’s list covers thousands of items being manufactured by its small and medium industries. They include many tariff lines from the sectors such as food processing, milk products, agricultural items, paper products and pharma items, besides light manufacturing goods, electronics, motorcar equipment, and textiles.

Trade policy experts cite reports of India’s move to approach the ADB for loan assistance to compensate industries that are likely to be hit by the FTA. In fact, the former Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, sought from the ADB last November for such an Asian Integration Adjustment Assistance Facility to help countries contracting FTA that gives “macro gains but also inflicts micro pains”.

Industry people quip that the macro gain would go to the ASEAN and the micro pain is what they are left with. They state that the product on which zero duty regime is scheduled to be ushered covers over 55 per cent of India’s global imports (2007-08 figures), offering ASEAN large scope of trade expansion at the cost of other efficient suppliers to India. Thus, imports from ASEAN would replace imports from other countries, even as the cheap imports from ASEAN countries would affect most domestic segments of industry, besides agriculture by entering here duty-free.

On the negative list by which no duty cut is proposed, both the parties resolved that while India had to maintain one consolidated negative list of 489 items for all the ASEAN countries, individual ASEAN country would hold negative list of 489 tariff lines as per individual country sensitivity to Indian imports. Effectively this implies that India has less than 50-60 items in its negative list for each ASEAN country, a patent asymmetric pact from negotiation angle, leaving legions of domestic industries vulnerable to dumping and material injury.

While India-ASEAN trade has boomed from $7 billion in 2000-01 to $39 billion in 2007-08 with a compounded annual growth rate of 28 per cent, so too has India’s trade deficit with the ASEAN members from a level of $3.5 billion to $14.5 billion in 2007. This was at a time when India was having a high tariff wall.

India and ASEAN are currently negotiating Agreements on Trade in Services and Investment, which are to be concluded by December 2009. New Delhi looks forward to access the vast services market of ASEAN. India’s total trade in services was $ 137.50 billion in 2006. The corresponding figure for ASEAN is $ 280.90 billion. Similarly, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attracted by India in 2007-08 was $ 24.60 billion, whereas ASEAN member countries attracted FDI totalling $ 60.50 billion in 2007.

Perhaps, all is not lost as the imbalance in goods trade could be surmounted by beginning negotiations on services with ASEAN under the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) since India is the 10th largest exporter of services and ASEAN is a net importer. --INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 5 October 2009

Urban Housing

REALISTIC SLUM POLICY CRUCIAL

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

The World Habitat Day, this October 5 was yet another grim reminder of the plight of the millions of homeless and the Government’s dilemma of how to make the country slum-free in the coming five years. Will the Urban Development Ministry’s latest scheme – Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana – with an initial budget of Rs 5,000 crores and aimed at constructing 10 lakh affordable houses meet targets?  

The much-publicised scheme envisages extending financial support under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to States that “are willing to assign property rights” to people living in slums. On its part, the Centre will encourage States to increase the supply of land and construct 10 lakh houses in the first phase by giving a grant of Rs 50,000 for every dwelling unit or bear 25 per cent of all civic services proposed in the housing project.

It is understood that to get the Central grant, projects should have houses ranging from 300 sq. ft. to 1200 sq. ft. plinth area built at affordable rates on land provided by the State Government. A minimum of 25 per cent houses of 300 sq. ft. will be compulsory for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in each project to be allotted. Further, to minimize the cost of construction, the scheme aims to come with layouts which mix EWS/Low Income Group (LIG) with Medium Income Group/ High Income Group (MIG/HIG) and commercial set-ups and cross subsidizing plans.   

The Yojana will ensure that the urban poor can access loans under interest subsidy scheme which provides five per cent subsidy on loans up to Rs one lakh. Moreover, States have been asked to cut stamp duty to a maximum two per cent for LIG and 0 per cent for EWS category to reduce the cost of houses.

These are no doubt welcome steps. But the problem is so acute with available resources being limited that development authorities have not been quite successful to cope up with the challenge affecting the EWS and the LIG sections constituting over 50 per cent of the population. In 2007, the National Housing & Habitat Policy found the total shortage in the country to be around 24.71 million dwelling units out of which 21.78 million units (around 88 per cent) constitute the shortage for the EWS and 2.89 million units (around 11.7 per cent) shortage for the LIG. In addition, there is the problem of the shelterless, who reside in pavements, squatter settlements etc.

The total investment required for meeting the housing shortage at the beginning of the 11^th Five Year Plan was estimated at Rs 147,195 crores and the investment required during the Plan period stands at Rs 214,123 crores. The proposed plan of providing ‘Housing for All’ by 2010 or even by 2015 would become virtually impossible with which the Government is unfortunately not much concerned. Schemes such as the National Slum Development Programme (NSDP), Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY), Indira Awas Yojana, the JNNURM and the 2 Million Housing Programme (2 MHP), which have reportedly focused on the EWS and the LIG sections, have not till date been able to meet the desired targets.    

The UN Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural in its most recent review (2008) pointed out that India has to “address the acute shortage of affordable housing by adopting a national strategy in a plan of action on adequate housing and by building or providing low-cost housing units, specially for the disadvantaged and low-income groups, including those living in slums”. It also brought out another dimension of the problem relating to displacement and forced eviction and urged the Government to take immediate measures to effectively enforce laws and regulations and “ensure that persons evicted from their homes and lands be provided with adequate compensation and/or offered alternative accommodation”.  

It has to be accepted that evictions have been increasing and estimates reveal that the total number of families affected in the 64 cities where the JNNURM is currently being implemented is over one million. In Delhi alone, between 2000 and 2006 around one lakh families were forcibly evicted while a massive eviction drive in Mumbai between November 2004 and March 2005, the State government destroyed 92,000 homes in 44 areas.  Moreover, in several cities people living in squatter settlements have been evicted without any due process and pushed to the city outskirts. 

Thus apart from construction of houses, slum upgradation is indeed a stupendous task as around 35 per cent of the urban population lives in such settlements, unauthorized colonies or on pavements. A UN Habitat report a few years ago found out that more people live in Mumbai’s slums than in the entire country of Norway. Worse, only 7-8 per cent of slum households have direct access to water and private toilets.  

The work of resettlement, upgradation or construction of houses for the poor have no doubt, to be financed by the Government but it would be better if the implementation is left to voluntary organizations for better results. Article 54 of the Habitat Agenda (1997) noted that Governments at the appropriate levels should carry out certain key functions. These include: One, promote self-help housing within the context of a comprehensive land-use policy.

Two, integrate and regularize self-built housing, specially through appropriate land registration programmes, as a holistic part of the overall housing and infrastructure system in urban and rural areas, subject to a comprehensive land-use policy. Three, encourage efforts to improve self-built housing through better access to resources including land, finance and building materials. Four, develop the means and methods to improve the standards of self-built housing.

Five, encourage community-based and NGOs in their role of assisting and facilitating the production of self-built housing. Six, facilitate regular dialogue and gender-sensitive participation of the various actors involved in housing production at all levels and stages of decision making. And, lastly mitigate the problems related to spontaneous human settlements through programmes and policies that anticipate unplanned settlements.

These need to be adhered to in finalization of a realistic slum policy (by modification of the earlier draft) and incorporating suggestions received from various voluntary organizations. All slums, whether recognized or unauthorized, have to be upgraded with minimum basic facilities so that it is worthy of living and proper rehabilitation given to all evictees. This work is more of a priority than construction of new houses for the economically weaker sections.      

The right to housing is now being debated the world over as it guarantees the right to live in security, peace and dignity. And the right to shelter involves not just adequate shelter but related rights such as access to safe drinking water and sanitation, security of land tenure and protection from forced evictions. But trends indicate that the economic policies being followed in most Third World countries, including India, are working against the interests of the weaker sections.

Creation of slummish settlements is not just a problem by itself but a manifestation of a larger problem. A problem of unjust and inequitable land holdings and that majority of the urban poor live in less than 1/10^th of the city space that too in pockets blighted and extremely marginal. When will all this change?  -- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 3 October 2009

Strike-A-Day-Nation

BANDH KARO YEH NATAK!

By Poonam I Kaushish

From Lokmanya Tilak’s “Swaraj is my birth right” to ‘strike is my birth right’. Indeed, over the decades India has trudged the treacherous protest road to become a strike-a-day nation. Wherein a person’s freedom ends at the tip of the others nose! 

Think. Last week air operations at several airports were thrown into disarray thanks to nearly 150 disgruntled executive Air India pilots going on enmass "sick leave," over the cash-strapped airline’s decision to slash their productivity-linked incentives by 50-70%. No matter that the four-day strike cost the nation over Rs 800 crores. The end? Status quo ante.

A repeat of Jet Airways 400-odd pilots going on mass "sick leave" two weeks earlier. Their cause? Reinstate two colleagues, sacked for trying to establish a union. The dispute was settled only after the airline succumbed to the pilots demands. Earlier in the year doctors in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka too resorted to strong-arm tactics. The latest to join the strike brigade were IIT professors.

Importantly, what makes these cases strikingly apart from strikes in general is that it’s for the first time that white-collared workers have resorted to what was the favourite tool of their blue-collared brethren. The only difference being that instead of going on a strike they resorted to en mass sick leave. Particularly, as the law bars “officials” from indulging in blackmailing tactics as they are a part and parcel of the management.

It is most shameful that pilots who get astronomical salary-allowances (Rs 4-6 lakhs per month) should hold airlines and passengers hostage. Putting the flying janata through untold misery, missed connections, saying goodbyes to holidays, appointments, medical help et al. Given, that all these years they have enjoyed good times. A little sacrifice during hard times would not have made much difference to their hefty pay-packet but would speak volumes about their commitment to work, responsibility as educated professionals to ensure their dedication and diligence to the job and the ethics entailed. This applies to doctors, engineers and educationists as well.

Have they all forgotten their duty as public servants? Primarily to serve the aam janata. Considering that their salary and other creature comforts come from the tax-payers hard-earned money. The less said the better of the rampant ghoos-khori. Without greasing palms no work gets done.

Tragically, turn North- South, East-West, any mohalla, city or State on any given day, the story is the same. Some disgruntled group is on strike to protest some grievance or failure leading to life coming to a standstill. Call it a bandh, hartal, rasta roko, chakka jam what you may matters little. Raising a moot point: Are strikes actually expression of freedom or are they means of suppressing fundamental rights in a democracy?

Arguably, not a few would simply shrug it off with “sab chalta hai attitude, this is Mera Bharat Mahan at its rudest and crassest best.”  Many would assert ki pharak painda hai. But the fact is that these strikes have exposed how dangerous this game has become. No longer can we dismiss it as a system’s failure.

Think. West Bengal has the maximum bandhs, an average of 40-50 per year. Followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. In Kerala a single day's shutdown costs the State Rs 700 crore. Divided by the State’s population it translates to Rs 233 per Keralite. Manipur experienced 52 bandhs and 43 blockades in the 2007-08 that cost the State Rs 504.32 crore and Rs 236.68 crore respectively.  Worse, the three National Highways passing through the North-East witnessed economic blockades for 139 days from April 2006-December 2007, wherein Sikkim lost Rs 7 crore per day.

According to the Union Labour Ministry, 386 strikes and 279 lockouts took place in 2007.  While 9,52,000 workers participated, over 95,000 workers were affected due to lockouts and over 8.36 million mandays lost. Analyse the cost the nation suffered!

Clearly, part of the current paradox is explained by the changed notion of strikes aka hartal aka bandh as a form of protest. The original concept was centred on the logic that the only way for a group of disempowered people to shake the system was to agitate. From a simple gherao for more wages to a voluntary hartal against policy decisions. But slowly perversion set in. A strike could be effective only if stoppage of work could not be overcome easily by the system. Therefore, the strikers use their power base, including violence, to stall anything that spells change from the set routine. 

Look at the irony. On one hand we talk of India as the next super power with a strong economy on par with countries like Japan, Korea and China. On the other we fail to realize that strikes are a hindrance to achieving this goal. In no civilised nations do political parties or trade unions dare to justify deaths and severe distress of citizens as necessary to voice protest. Any call for a bandh should come from the suffering aam aadmi not from netas or corporate-executive fat cats.

Recall, in 1997 the Kerala High Court held that bandhs were illegal and people could not be forced to be a part of these. In 2003 the Supreme Court endorsed this and added, “Government employees had no fundamental, legal, moral or equitable right” to go on strikes whatever the cause, “just or unjust”. Pointing out that aggrieved employees had other options available to them, the Bench opined: Strikes as a weapon is mostly misused, which results in chaos and total maladministration.

The Apex Court’s judgment also upheld the Kerala Court’s fine distinction between hartal and a bandh.  It held that hartal was a form of passive resistance and a call for it did not involve force. While a bandh was an enforced muscle flexing act which interfered with the freedom and fundamental right of citizens.

True, the Constitution guarantees one the right to protest, but it does not guarantee one the right to infringe upon others rights. Unfortunately, our strikers fail to realize that strikes negate the basic concept of democracy. These are just a camouflage for non-performance, self-glorification, to gain sympathy or wriggle out of working hard.

Clearly, the time has come to take a leaf out of the US law, wherein there is no constitutional right to make a speech on a highway, so as to cause a crowd to gather and obstruct traffic. The right to assembly is to be so exercised as not to conflict with other lawful rights, interests and comfort of the individual or the public and public order. Also, the municipality has the power to impose regulations in order to assure the safety and convenience of the people. And the power to break up a meeting if the speaker undertakes incitement to riot or breach of peace.

In the UK, the Seditious Meeting Act, 1817 prohibits meetings of more than 50 persons within a mile of Westminster Hall during the sitting of Parliament. In Japan they strike in a different way. A case in point. At a shoe factory the workers showed their protest by producing only one shoe out of the pairs they were meant to manufacture so that though the output was not out, the production was going on.

Unfortunately, in India a strike is the weapon of the bully. How long can we allow this? Time to stop giving into the strong-arm tactics. There is need to hold a referendum where people decide what is right or wrong.  Remember, paralysing the State, black-mailing corporates, industries to get attention and policy reversals only exasperates the public and inconveniences them, cuts off the money flow, shoos off investors, and endangers their own jobs.

The country needs good governance and economic growth. The right of the citizen is paramount. The question we all need to ask is: Can we afford strikes at all, leave aside for what purpose it may have been called? At some point we have to stand up and bellow, "Bandh karo ye natak!"--- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)