Technical experts of State Drinking Water and Sanitation department will reach Palamu to do a pre-start inspection of bio-gas and bio slurry generation plants here.

Executive engineer (EE) of the department at Daltonganj, A K Singh, said the department has advertised an EoI ( expression of interest) in the month of November 2018 for Gobardhan project in response to which there came six proposals online.

Singh said five out of these six are the proposals of village drinking water & sanitation committee while one proposal is from an individual. The five online proposals that came from village drinking water & sanitation committee are from villages Basna, Majhigawan, Karra, Suree and Chiyanki. The individual proposal is from a big khatal owner Heeranand Pathak.

DC Palamu Shantanu Kumar Agrahari said that in their review meeting, the administration accorded sanction to these six proposals but the final take on it will come only after the inspection of the technical experts.

The DC further said the user of the bio gas and bio slurry is all free and the user is not to have any agreement for it with any agency. He said the administration wishes that women self help groups should come forward for this as women do most of the cow dung business.

He added there are big khatal owners (read cattle farming shed) where cattle dung is huge and this can be put to its maximum use in a way that is generation of energy as well as treatment of solid degradable waste too.

The EE said the department is to decide the cost of each of the bio gas plant and also the amount of subsidy to come on it.

However, he cautioned that a regular availability of cattle dung is a must for the running of this kind of plant and in the event of shortage of cattle dung, the fate of the plant gets a question mark.