Address by Shri Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB at Open House Event at SPRERI - 24 January 2023

Open House Event at SPRERI

24^th January, 2023

Address by Chief Guest – Shri Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB

 Good Morning!

Shree Bhikhubhai  Patel, Chairman, Charutar Vidya Mandal

Dr Gaurav Mishra, Director SPRERI

Professionals from R&D institutions, entrepreneurs, officials from various NGOs/SHGs, students and staff from various schools, colleges and institutions

It is indeed a pleasure to be here with all of you on the occasion of 14^th Open House event organized by the SPRERI.

As we all are aware ‘Energy is at the heart of the climate challenge’ – and is also key to the solution. A large chunk of the greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat are generated through production and use of energy.

It is very clear: to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, emissions need to be reduced. We in India (GOI) have targeted to meet the 50% of the energy through renewable route by 2030 and to reach to net-zero by 2070 as said by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India at CoP26 summit, Glasgow. To achieve this, we need to substantially reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and invest in alternative sources of energy that are clean, accessible, affordable, sustainable, and reliable.

Renewable energy sources – which are available in abundance all around us, are replenished by nature and emit little to no greenhouse gases or pollutants into the air. The cost of renewable energy technologies are also getting rationalised with enhanced scale.  

I must congratulate the team of scientists here at SPRERI for development of technologies and specific equipments which are not only harnessing the use of the solar, biomass and other non-fossil sources of energy but also ensure they are efficient, enhance the savings and provide additional income to the users particularly farmers.

The initiatives like Natural-draft cook stove, Use of Microalgae biomass for production bio-diesel and as an aqua feed………… are some of the very good initiatives I could see today.

For the last many years, we at NDDB have also been promoting adoption of solar energy across various levels of dairy value chain. Solarising operations of Dairy Cooperative Societies through installation of solar PVs, introduction of solar BMCs, solar chillers and Concentrated Solar thermal to meet the requirement of thermal energy of dairy plants are some initiatives introduced by NDDB which now have been taken up at a larger level. A large scale program on penetration of solar energy with the support of Govt. of India is in the offing.

National Dairy Development Board has also been working closely with dairy cooperatives and women dairy farmers to provide support in the installation of digesters for biogas. Under NDDB’s Manure Management Initiative, biogas plants are installed by the dairy farmers in their backyard for producing gas to be used as cooking fuel. The bio slurry produced from these biogas plants is primarily used by the farmers in their own field and surplus bio slurry gets sold to other farmers or converted into organic fertilisers.

Also, NDDB is establishing a large capacity biogas plants to meet the energy requirements of the entire dairy plant. The widespread adoption of these models will go a long way towards reducing the adverse impact on environment and provide an additional stream of income for dairy farmers.

NDDB is also encouraging an integrated approach towards climate smart dairying through interventions like genetic improvement of bovine, animal health improvement, scientific fodder production, feeding management, manure management, promotion of solar energy and carbon sequestration.

SPRERI and NDDB team can work together wherein SPRERI team works on the development of the technologies and NDDB will work on trials and taking these technologies further to dairy cooperatives for the benefit of dairy farmers and largely for the betterment of rural economy.

During the Open House, I am glad that various renewable energy technologies developed by SPRERI as well as selected commercial technologies will be shown and explained in detail by the scientists for two days 24-25 Jan 2023. I take this opportunity to invite all of you to visit NDDB to see its work in the renewable domain.  This event plays a catalyst role in sensitizing the people around to look at the alternative options available and how beneficial they are and how they can be used at household and/or commercial level. I am sure that maximum benefit will be taken by all of us of this open house event.

Thank you.