MARGAO
This is not the first time that the slurry tank of the 5TPD bio-methanation plant at the SGDPA market has reached a point of saturation for want of disposal.
In the past too, operation of the bio-methanation plant had come to a halt over the delay in disposing off the slurry by the Margao Municipal Council. Locals had also charged the Margao Municipal Council and officials manning the bio-methanation plant for discharging the slurry in the adjoining fields.
The Goan understands that an audit report was prepared by a team of auditors after a visit to the biogas plant some time ago, comprising of Dr Sachin Tendulkar (CEO, Mineral Foundation of Goa), Dr Jagannath Hirkude (Professor, Goa Engineering College, Farmagudi-Ponda, Abhinav Apte, Director (Track Change LLP) and Pravin Faldesai (Goa State Pollution Control Board) has observed that the plant operator has been struggling with the disposal of the digested slurry. In its observation, the team had observed “based on the data analysed, it’s evident that the biogas plant is not being used to its capacity. This is probably due to the bottlenecks, namely disposal of digestate and utilization of electricity generated”.
After observing that the digestate slurry bed was completely full and the reason behind the plant not being operational, the audit team had then observed that the digestate slurry need to be regularly taken away by the Municipality so that the plant operations are not affected because of the delay in disposing off the waste.
AUDIT TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations to the Municipality by the Audit team some months ago:
*Digestate slurry bed was completely full and that was the reason the plant was not operational.
*It needs to be ensured that the digestate slurry be regularly taken away by the municipality so that the plant operations are not affected because of this.
*The municipality may explore testing of the digestate slurry for nutrients and other important parameters.
*Distribution or sale of the slurry to local farmers/citizens/industries may be explored so that such an important resource is not wasted.
