S.B. Chaya is a 72-year-old philanthropist who’s taken upon himself to come up with an acceptable alternative. And his initiative, to discover a substitute for firewood, has resulted in the setting up of the country’s first-ever biomass gasifier in Ambernath, a busy Mumbai suburb.
Says Chaya: "Cremation is the last ritual for the human body and it should be performed with decorum, sans any distinction between the rich and the poor." Chaya is president and a founder-member of Nagarik Seva Mandal (nsm), Ambernath, formed to run the suburb’s crematorium.
In this small Thane township, availability of wood for cremation was a major problem in the ’80s. This prompted the nsm to make available everything required for the purpose. But the paucity of wood and rising cremation costs provoked it to build a diesel crematorium. With help from the state government and the municipality, this Rs 20-lakh project began operating in early 1999.
In this 600-sq-foot chamber, cremation is over within two hours, saving about 60 tonnes of wood annually. But high maintenance costs and unconventionality of the process prevented it from becoming a success. Chaya kept looking for a better, environment-friendly system. He, finally, came across an article on the biomass gasifier burner, successfully tried in Sri Lanka for cremation.
Chaya appealed to the Tata Energy Research Institute (teri) for help. A prompt reply said: "teri is working on the development of a biomass-based system, both for power generation as well as thermal applications. Its effective application will reduce fuel consumption and save a substantial quantity of firewood." It "is likely to gain acceptance as each body would be burnt in a wood flame".
Under its ongoing r&d project, sanctioned by the ministry of non-conventional energy sources, teri agreed to work on the idea. It has developed a laboratory prototype of the system on its campus at Gual Pahari, Haryana, cremating animal carcasses to observe the viability of the concept.
This efficient and eco-friendly device for cremation will reduce fuel consumption by one-third, bringing it down to 70 kg per body. Now teri, together with the nsm, awaits the municipalty’s permission to begin field trials in order to arrive at a final system design for large-scale promotion.
Such a crematorium, the first of its kind in the country, could go a long way in curbing deforestation and pollution.
Gasification is a biomass technology based on high-temperature/precise thermo-chemical reaction which converts solid biomass—fuelwood in this case—into more convenient-to-use gaseous form.
Though the model is based on the biomass system, the fuel used will be wood, not animal waste. So, the risk of hurting religious sentiments is just not there. The only difference is that here only chips and small pieces of waste wood will be used as fuel.
Besides the local population, which is rooting for this proposal, many social organisations from Thane and Gujarat are eagerly awaiting the results of the field test.
Once the idea takes shape and is approved by all, history will remember Chaya as somebody who made renewable energy an inseparable part of our lives and deaths. For more information, contact S.B. Chaya, president, Nagarik Seva Mandal, Shiv Chaya, Plot No. 23, Survodaya Cooperative Housing Society, Ambernath (E) 421501, Telephone: 95251-606523.