Socio Economic Impact of Biogas Plants (A Case Study of Bungkot VDC Gorkha District)

Abstract

Nepal has one of the lowest per capita energy consumption in the world of just 15 GJ, in which the traditional sources of energy shared the largest proportion of the total energy consumption in the country. The residential sector is the largest consumer sector of the total energy. The rural residential sector highly depends on the fuel wood energy which is the major cause of deforestation. The deforestation rate can be minimized if the dependency on fuel-wood energy is reduced. For, this biogas technology has become an important alternative. This study entitled "Socio-economic Impact of Biogas Plants (A Case Study of Bungkot VDC of Gorkha District) was conducted with the objectives of findings, capacity utilization of biogas plants, socio economic impact on work load of men and women health, sanitation, time saving, firewood saved, biogas production, gender involvement, slurry management, agriculture, economic benefit of biogas plants, at Bungkot VDC of Gorkha District. This study is mainly based on the primary information and the data were collected using the techniques of field survey with the help of structured questionnaire, field visit, observation, unstructured interviews. Majority of the households 61.764% have 5-7 members in their family whereas the number of households engaged in agriculture and service sector are 70.588% and 20.588% respectively. During the study, it was found that Newars (50%) were main beneficiaries of the biogas plants. The economic condition of the biogas users household was found good and most of the biogas plants (91.176%) were toilet connected. Even though the plants were found underfed, the gas production was sufficient in summer but it was much less in the winter. Biogas energy was used only for cooking foods. The land holding size on this study area population have 21 ropanies above which is the 60% of total population. The people of this study area mostly reared buffaloes study as the reliable source of cowdung raw materials for providing bio- gas in household affiars. All the surveyed biogas plants were in good condition and well functioning. Biogas user households were satisfied with the performance of biogas plants because it had positive impact on social, economic, environmental, educational and health aspects and many benefits for them. Comparatively, women had experienced much improvement in their health status after the installation of biogas plants then men. People perceptions about biogas plants were found positive. Biogas has made easy for cooking and maintaining clean environment. The biogas plant made the provision of toilet and also reduced the workload of people. Also biogas plants raised the having started and social prestize of them. Thus, both male and female were equally happy with biogas plants.