Vadodara/Goraj: Started in 1978 as a primary school by Anuben Thakkar, who aspired to become a nun but could not do so because of lack of college education, Muni Seva Ashram, nearly 30 kilometres from Vadodara, has become a model for village self-sustainability.Today, the ashram is spread over 350 acres and houses a school, cancer hospital, senior citizen centre, cow sheds among other things. But, it has been experimenting with green technologies since early years of its inception. The ashram established a bio-gas plant in 1983 for cooking food for the children coming there.Its efforts to become energy independent did not end there. Over the decades the ashram has worked to make optimum utilization of natural resources and it established bigger bio-gas plants, solar air-conditioning system, solar crematorium, solar cookers, and bio-mass gasifier.The kitchens of the ashram, that feed 3,000 people everyday, are a model for community kitchens. The ashram produces energy on its own for cooking the meals and does not depend on piped or bottled gas. The large solar dishes that grab the eye-balls produce steam for boiling food. And, the biogas that produced at its biogas plant in Bakrol village near Waghodia is bottled and brought for cooking. Ashram's trustee Deepak Gadhia says that the kitchens here have never used the bottled gas of the public-sector companies. Yet, they keep these bottles as a back-up plan. Gadhia is not the only one who has been serving in the ashram but, there are many more engineers like him who have left their jobs in multinational companies abroad and are serving in the ashram as social scientists.Gadhia claims that they keep experimenting with the technologies to make the ashram 100% self-sufficient. During one such experiment they discovered CNG from the gas that is produced from biogas plant. "Once we were trying to remove carbon dioxide from the gas that is produced in the biogas plant to pump more gas in the bottles and we accidentally discovered CNG from it," said Gadhia. The CNG that is produced now is used for running vehicles of the ashram. The large solar dishes also power a 100 tonne air conditioning system of the ashram through vapour absorption chillers. Few years back a solar crematorium was also made for the residents of Goraj village. It is claimed that these are the first solar air condit...

News Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vadodara/goraj-ashram-experiments-with-green-technologies-to-become-self-sufficient/articleshow/58099825.cms

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Goraj ashram experiments with green technologies to become self-sufficient - NYOOOZ