Socio-Economic Impact of Biogas Plantin Rural Nepal (A Case Study of Phidim VDC of Panchthar District)

Abstract

Energy is a basic necessary for survival which helps in the economic developmentand living standard of a country. In Nepal, majority of the people still depends on thetraditional sources of energy i.e. firewood, which has manifold disadvantages regardingEnvironmental, Health and Sanitation but the newalternative energy, biogaswhichreplacethe traditional sources of energy,has many positive aspects. It is environment friendly andeasy to use. Since Nepal is an agricultural country,most of the people rear cattle. Cattledung is the basic raw materials for biogas. Nepal has agreatpotentiality of biogas. This study was carried out with the objective of :To find out the Socio-EconomicImpact of Biogas.The data is collected through the questionnaire, interview, FGD andobservation. The purposive sampling of 32 HHs was done to gather the necessaryinformation required. From the research it is known that the dominant position is ofBramahans followed by other castes. The main occupations of the local people areagriculture46.88 andservices25 percentin Nepal. More than 65 percent people in sampledhouseholds are literate. On an average, the each plant owners has 4 heads of livestock. Themost popular biogas plant of the study area is 6m 3 . the main reasons behind the installationof biogas plant are easy and smokeless cooking, get rid from firewood collation and timesaving. On an average, time saving after installation is 120 minutes per day from firewoodcollection, cooking activities and washing utensils. Saving of time which is spent collectingfirewood and its reduction of consumption is equal to Rs. 400 per months. Most of thepeople use Bio-slurry in their farms in composted form. According to them, the use of slurryhas increased the production especially Maze, Paddy and vegetables. The use of chemicalfertilizer has been reduced which has helpedin saving money. In the present world, there is shortage of petroleum fuels on the one had and theother the price for such fuels is getting very high. Developing country like Nepal, whodoesn't have itsown petroleum products, cannot have such fuels. So, alternative energy forsuch fuels can be biogas in Nepal because it is an agricultural country and thus, thepotentiality is very high. Besides that biogas is environmental friendly so it can directly helpCDM programme. And from carbon trading Nepal also can get a high amount of money.