Monsoons are eagerly awaited throughout India because the country’s prosperity and the ruling Governments popularity depend on whether the monsoons have been good or bad. In case the rains failed in large parts of the country there would be all round misery with poor agricultural output and consequent rise in price of food articles and suffering for the people, mainly the poor. The cascading effects of failed monsoon would affect the industries too with poor demand from the farming community, which accounts for a major proportion of the Indian population. During the worst droughts that hit the country in the past, people in rural India were the worst affected with a number of cases of deaths due to starvation or diseases.

During one of the worst droughts some years ago, villagers in one of the states suffered badly and starved because of loss of failure of crops and unemployment. The problem before the Government was how to help the villagers to earn enough to buy food in the market and keep their body and soul together! It is not easy to suddenly come up with some alternative employment for the farm labourers. So the Government decided to repair the roads in the villages for which the labour force could be used. Huge boulders were brought to the villages and the villagers were employed to break the boulders. Some UN observers engaged in relief work were aghast at the sight of poor half starved farmers engaged in breaking stones and sweating under the sun! Those foreigners believed that such work could be given only as a punishment to criminals or jailbirds and not for half starved villagers who were already weakened by malnutrition and needed help in the form of food and medical help!! Relief measures should not be so harsh!

Khadi cloth or “Khadder” is a cloth woven from hand spun yarn. Ever since Gandhiji made hand spinning the symbol of India’s breaking away from British shackles, “Khadder” is the choice of all politicians, compulsory for the Congress party worker. Even after sixty years of independence “Khadder” continues to be the cloth for the Congress worker.
Hand spinning had some meaning in those days before the independence, and Gandhiji spun yarn on a Charkha to convey some meaning to the masses. It is doubtful that Gandhiji intended to make it a profession for livelihood for himself or for the masses of India because a single spindle Charkha, which was in vogue in those days, could hardly be expected to produce sufficient quantities of yarn for making a living. But after independence successive Governments wanted to promote hand spinning and Khadi as an employment opportunity for the villagers. So a Khadi board came into existence and later the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).

But for the introduction of a four spindles Charkha by Mr. Ekambaram, Khadi would have become extinct long ago. Mr. Ekambaram’s Charkha came to be known as the Ambar Charkha later. Present Charkhas have six or eight spindles, but still the production is not economical compared to mill production and lot of subsidies go into Khadi industry to keep it going. B.K.Nehru, in his memoirs “Nice Guys Finish Second” states that a former finance minister who was reputed for his business acumen and commercial sense, Mr. T.T.Krishnamachari, thought very poorly of the Ambar Charkha and told that it would ruin the country (or something to that effect!). Ekambaram’s Charkha was an innovative product and after many years very little improvement has happened on the Ambar Charkha except some cosmetic changes that mainly benefited some MNCs in the textile machinery Industry! Now we hear from news reports that a new E-Charkha has been “invented” awaiting introduction of some 2 Lakh Charkhas at a cost of Rs.3000/- each for the hand spinners!! The E-Charkha is not an improvement on the Charkha for increased production of yarn or to reduce the load on the operator but it is a Charkha to which a dynamo is fitted. When the handle of the Charkha is rotated electricity is produced which is used for charging a battery. This battery can light up an LCD lamp! Such a mechanism could be attached to any device having rotating parts but why the Charkha and increase the load on the operator whose productivity is already low!! The device could be attached to a bicycle or a bullock cart or a scooter or any other device! Usually when elections are near lots of funds are channelled through KVIC for political purposes!! Ha!! Rupees sixty crores !! Wow!!

Now take Biogas, or Gobar gas as we Indians would call it. Many press reports have appeared about its advantages and India is in the forefront of Gobar gas production units. India has over 2 million installed in the country for producing gas for cooking in households. There is no clear figure of how many are working on a regular basis or how much is the production. But this much is clear: We have the world’s largest livestock population of 250 million, which produces close to 125 million tonnes of cow dung. Using this we can produce enough methane gas to entirely replace LPG and kerosene in cooking, and substitute petrol in transportation. Methane gas can also produce enough electricity to meet all requirements, at least in rural areas. The by-product can serve as excellent organic manure, substituting chemical fertilisers, which require LNG as feedstock.

Just consider what has been happening in other countries on the biogas front: (From BBC news site)
“The world's first biogas-powered passenger train is taking its first passengers between the Swedish cities of Linkoping and Vastervik. Nor is it just trains. In Linkoping, the 65-strong bus fleet is powered by biogas. Indeed the city boasts that it was the first in the world to try out its buses on methane. The taxis, the rubbish trucks and a number of private cars also fill up at the biogas pump, housed under a dinky green corrugated iron roof. “
I understand that the reputed German automobile manufacturer BMW is producing electrical energy from landfill gas, methane, to meet almost 20% of their energy requirement. They are getting the methane gas from a distance of about 9 kilometres through pipe lines to gas turbines for production of electrical power. This is really great.

If the world’s richest economies are concerned about the depleting resources of crude oil, what is India doing with the world’s largest livestock population of 250 million?

We must wait till another Dr. Kurien, famed for the milk revolution in the country, takes the initiative to form co-operatives to collect cow dung and produce biogas on a commercial basis in every district of the country.
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