June 10, 2008 was a historic day for Ramanwadi, a small, isolated village in the tropical reserve forests of the Sahyadri mountain range in Maharashtra.

Newly installed Gobar-gas units were inaugurated and everyone was overjoyed to see the flames. Using the bio-gas stoves meant an end to troublesome smoke from firewood stoves. And the women and girls do not need to walk 6-8 kms just to collect firewood. I was invited to the first meal cooked on gobar gas, and a unique feature was that 90% of the ingredients were from the fields owned by the family.

To load the digester with dung (Gobar) for the first time, a whole tractor trolley of dung is required. When more dung had to be obtained from nearby villages, it generated interest and soon more villages wanted the biogas units installed. Dilip Patil, the contractor who installed the bio-gas units, was amazed to see all this enthusiasm.

So far, at Ramanwadi, we installed 15 gobar gas digesters with a capacity of 2 cubic meters and 3 units at the neighboring village of Bhari Bhambar, with support of Rs. 1,74,000 from AID-Dallas. All the beneficiaries attended a training session and a laminated instruction chart will also be provided to each family. For the 18 units, the government provided a subsidy of Rs. 63,000 through the renewable energy department and the Zilla Parishad.

Rahul Vijay Deshpande manages VMT (Venu Madhuri Trust) at Ramanwadi village, near Kolhapur in Maharashtra. AID has supported VMT work for the last three years.