New NGO Projects Proposed in India

Following the INFORSE Central Asia Workshop, of May 29-31, a number of INFORSE organizations in India have been developing NGO projects promoting many sustainable energy solutions.

The projects will give a new thrust to implementation of sustainable energy solutions in India and in the other Central Asian countries, and will make maximal use of NGO experiences.

The core proposals represent 25 projects for promotion of renewable energy systems and energy conservation in rural areas by information, training, dissemination, and demonstration. Among the objectives of the proposals are to make selected villages self-sufficient in energy, to support village-level economic self-reliance by reducing nceds for external resources, and to improve the living conditions, especially for women. The strategy to achieve this is to use information and establishment of demonstration equipment to motivate as well as organise self-help groups and community-based organisations (CBOs) for collective action in promotion of renewable energy sources. The technologies that will be promoted are solar cookers, solar dryers, solar lanterns (Low-energy lamp with build-in rechargeable battery and small, external solar cell), solar water heaters, biogas plants, smokeless cook stoves, energy plantations (fast-growing fuel wood species), treadle pumps, and bullock driven agricultural equipment. Among the expected results of the projects are a 30-40% reduction of reliance on non-renewable energy sources by the families involved and a 50% reduction in the costs of intensive agriculture. The latter will be achieved by shifting dependency on external inputs to locally available renewable resources, including biogas slurry. The 25 proposals are being developed by 25 NGOs within the INSEDA (Integrated Sustainable Energy &Ecological Development Association).

A project has been proposed to disseminate information build awareness and provide training on a regional scale. It will include the members of INFORSE Central Asia and INSEDA. The courses will primarily prepare local trainers. In addition a regional project has been proposed to disseminate the Bandhu biogas plant (see Sustainable Energy News no. 14 regarding this new type of biogas plant).

All of the proposals have been forwarded to the UNESCO Secretariat for the World Solar Commission, which is developing the World Solar Programme (WSP). Proposals like these could improve the WSP considerably, as they are based more on needs and field experiences, and less on top down ideas, than the current 300+ proposals in the draft WSP of the World Solar Summit. Various other funding opportunities are being considered for the projects as well.

More Information: INSEDA, INFORSE Central Asia