LAHORE: The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature and the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited distributed on Tuesday gasifiers (a stove run on agricultural waste) to Mianwala villagers in Kasur.

The distribution was done under the Agro-Waste Community Enterprise for provision of alternate energy for households and small-businesses project that provides clean burning cooking stoves fuelled by agro-waste as an alternate means of energy to rural communities.

Senior WWF Manager Asad Imran briefed reporters that energy sources were limited and were shrinking day by day. He said the gasifier units had been made with the help of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, to use agricultural waste and residues of crops as the burning stuff. “Such a step would lessen the burden on jungles as communities would not cut trees and those who could not afford oil or LPG would also be benefitted from these gasifiers,” Mr Imran said. The project started in 2017, and by now 525 families have been provided with gasifiers. He said every family receiving a gasifier was to plant 10 trees and the children of the family should be school going. To fulfill this condition the officials of WWF monitored the whole process. He said the average cost of a domestic gasifier was Rs3,000 to 3,500 and for the commercial use the price was Rs6,000 or so.

He said under the project, promotion of alternate energy solutions was coupled with plantation campaign to enhance tree plantation to support country’s forest cover, since Pakistan had the lowest forest cover (1.9 per cent) in South Asia.

The project aims to promote eco-friendly, alternate energy sources among rural households and small businesses through training, awareness raising and dissemination of 525 gasifiers units using agro-waste as fuel, a low-cost, simple, user-friendly yet clean source of energy for cooking with great potential for wider dissemination among rural communities where different agro-wastes are available in abundant form.

The project is being carried out through multiple field activities in central Punjab, south Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through capacity building workshops, on-site demonstration of agro-waste gasifiers and distribution of gasifier units among rural families and small businesses. A total of 525 rural and farming families, small culinary businesses and 20 local vendors/technicians are being facilitated. More than 44 fabricators/local technicians have been trained on the gasifier’s fabrication procedure and its technical specification, said officials.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2018