Punjab: India's largest 20 acres bio-energy plant to reduce threat of paddy straw burning

The facility was established by the Indian affiliate of the German Verbio Group. With a 33 TPD (tonnes per day) compressed biogas capacity, this is India's largest biofuel (biomethane/bio-CNG) production facility, according to Mr Mann.

He estimated that this machine will consume 1.30 lakh tonnes of straw annually and added that it would help with the issue of burning paddy straw. According to an official announcement quoting Bhagwant Mann, this unit, which was built on 20 acres of land, will help reduce the 1.50 lakh metric tonnes per year of pollutants and the 20,000 MT of fly ash that rice straw burning now produces.

This facility will provide work for 1,000 young people and enhance 2,150 acres of land with bio manure. He claimed that the Verbio firm has expressed a strong desire to build other such factories in the state.

According to Bhagwant Mann, Punjab is having trouble disposing of crop leftovers because of the extensive wheat and paddy cropping patterns, especially the paddy straw that has no other use. Only 5 MT of the annual 18 million tonnes of stubble produced is utilised in the plywood industry, industrial boilers, and biomass power plants, according to him. Farmers are burning the remaining 13 MT on their fields because there are no other safe disposal options, he added. In Punjab, there are 75 lakh acres of paddy farming. From this, 37 lakh acres of farmers do not burn paddy straw.

He stated that significant actions must be done to secure the management of the remaining 38 lakh acres. He stated that two additional projects with a combined daily capacity of 14.25 tonnes of compressed biogas are anticipated to be finished in 2022–2033. According to Mr Mann, Punjab has a great deal of potential for CBG projects based on agro-waste.