Gasifiers distributed in Kasur village

LAHORE: WWF-Pakistan and SNGPL, as part of the Aware project, organised an event for gasifiers distribution among rural women of Matta village, district Kasur, in the presence of senior management from both organisations.

A press statement issued here Tuesday said the project titled “Agro-waste community enterprise for provision of alternate energy for households and small-businesses (AWARE)” provides clean burning cooking stoves fuelled by agro-waste as an alternate means of energy to rural communities. It said the project aims to promote eco-friendly, alternate energy sources among rural households and small businesses through training, awareness raising and dissemination of 525 gasifier units using agro-waste as fuel; a low-cost, simple, user-friendly yet clean source of energy for cooking with great potential for wider dissemination among rural communities where different agro-wastes are available in abundant form.

The project is being carried out through multiple field activities in central Punjab, south Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through capacity building workshops, on-site demonstration of agro-waste gasifiers and distribution of gasifier units among rural families and small businesses.

Through this project, 525 rural and farming families, small culinary businesses and 20 local vendors/technicians are being facilitated. More than 44 fabricators/local technicians have been trained on gasifier fabrication procedure and its technical specification.

Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General, WWF-Pakistan said, “With this partnership we have an opportunity to promote renewable energy technologies, particularly harnessing the true potential of agro-waste in order to ensure that the rural and less privileged areas of the country keep pace with the growing energy demands in a sustainable manner. This project will not only improve rural livelihoods by ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and clean energy but will also help in promoting environmental stewardship and encouraging climate change mitigation.”

Speaking on the occasion, Farrukh Majeed, General Manager, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), SNGPL said, “We as an organisation are committed to the conservation and protection of the environment, to achieve this purpose we have worked with WWF-Pakistan in the past and will continue to work with the organisation in future. Recognising the measures being taken by WWF-Pakistan in tackling the catastrophic impacts of climate change, together we will promote activities to protect and preserve the environment—conservation is at the heart of SNGPL’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy.”

The project team also visited the tree plantation site. The provision of agro-waste gasifiers to communities was directly linked with tree plantation to foster environmental stewardship among rural communities. Therefore more than 1,680 trees have been planted by the communities where the gasifiers were distributed.

The project team has also launched awareness campaign among rural school girls of the project area educating them about alternative energy solutions. More than 600 students received training and participated in the plantation activity.