Global accolade for Bihar man’s green power project

Electrical engineer Gyanesh Pandey, 35, has never met Shahrukh Khan. But, his story, which won international accolade on Tuesday, is remarkably similar to Khan’s portrayal of a NRI engineer providing water to his native village in the film Swadesh. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 19, 2011, 24:22:29 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Electrical engineer Gyanesh Pandey, 35, has never met Shahrukh Khan. But, his story, which won international accolade on Tuesday, is remarkably similar to Khan’s portrayal of a NRI engineer providing water to his native village in the film Swadesh.

Instead, of water, the 35 year old has given cheap and clean electricity generated from waste rice husk to 380 of the poorest villages in West Champaran district of Bihar and his work is now one of the five most innovative green projects in the world.

Ashden Awards for sustainable energy in London said Pandey’s company, Husk Power Systems provides clean, reliable electricity supply and cost less than the alternatives.

“Husk Power’s 65 plants gasify rice husks and other biomass waste to supply electricity to around 180,000 people and, by replacing kerosene, they cut greenhouse emissions by over 8,000 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide a year,” said a statement issued by Ashden Awards.

Pandey, at the age of 31, quit his lucrative MNC job in Los Angeles, eight years after passing out from the Benaras Hindu University and pursuing a dream career like many of his contemporaries in United States.

All changed in 2006, when Pandey failed a Vipassana course in Los Angeles and his desire to carry out rural development work in his village and being “homesick” convinced him to shun is bright career option in the growing semi-conductor industry in US.

“I was back in 2007 and discussed my dream with Ratnesh Yadav, my old friend,” he recalled and said the break came when an official in the ministry of new and renewable energy offered help to generate electricity from rice husk.

Later that year, on the anniversary of India’s 60th year of independence, the two set up their first unit in the rundown village of Tamkuha (meaning Fog of Darkness) -- one of the three lakh Indian villages that don’t have electricity -- in Dhanaha region of the district.

It was for the first time the villagers experienced electricity like a few others in Bundelkhand in Central India, benefited from a similar clean energy project.

For a monthly rental of Rs 100, 50 Watt of power, enough to light two compact fluorescent lamps and a mobile phone charger, is provided to each of the 32,500 households now. It has reduced monthly kerosene consumption by six to seven litres, translating into a saving of around Rs 200.

The husk power system plant, which runs for eight hours every day, generates 35 KW of power and has a electricity distribution system to cover villages within two kilometers.

“It just a start,” Pandey told HT, claiming that he was made for rural development and it was his mission now. The company plans to set up 1,000 such units from 65 by 2014.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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