Employment opportunities from manufacturing biogas stoves in Pakistan

Most of the biogas household use the regular CNG stoves for cooking. CNG stoves are made to run on pure methane and under a fixed pressure. Biogas plants of the fixed dome model is not supplied under uniform pressure. Biogas on the other hand is only 50 to 60% methane as compared to 100% in CNG. This require the biogas stove to have different specification to be as efficient. In 2011 Pakistan Domestic Biogas Programme provided training on manufacturing of a biogas stove to four persons: two each from Faisalabad and Sargodha districts from the Province of Punjab. The objective of organising such training was twofold:

1.      Make available an appropriate biogas stove that are locally available for households who have installed biogas plants.

In the project area most biogas households install the natural gas stove that still works with biogas but not as efficiently as it should. This particular stove requires some adjustments before it can be properly used. The households are not aware of or often ignore making the required adjustments thereby forfeiting the efficient use of biogas.

2.      Make available an opportunity for employment to enterprising individuals.

For individuals or small enterprises this skill will provide an opportunity to add to their product range an additional but profitable and marketable item. This will help them run their enterprise more profitably and also generate other spin off employment opportunities for example to those who cast the burners and to those who manufacture the stove body frame.

Adnan is a young man who participated in the training. He owns a small lathe workshop in Sargodha City in Punjab Province where he mainly carried out metal fabrication required for repairing various equipment. He directly employs two persons in his workshop. After the training he started manufacturing the biogas stove on top of his regular work. Gradually the stoves have started to get popular and are the main source of income for the workshop. Starting from selling one or two stoves a month  a year ago, he now regularly sells at least 12 in a week and the demand is increasing as orders are not only coming from his district but also from adjoining districts. Manufacturing biogas stoves has now become his main activity although he is also continuing his other works. He anticipates that as the households keep on realizing the benefit of using a biogas stove instead of the regular natural gas stoves, demand for his stove will still rise

He gets the burner cast elsewhere as per the required specification and carries out the finishing works in his workshop. He also orders the body of the stove made elsewhere according to required specifications. He assembles the burner at his workshop. In this manner he is helping to increase the spread of the employment opportunities linked to the stove manufacturing.

At present his main clients are the Biogas Construction Companies (BCC) who help sell the stoves to the households, making a small profit during this transaction. The main reasons the BCCs are promoting his stoves are not for the small profit that they make but for the associated benefits. They get fewer complaints about functioning of the biogas plants from households who have installed the biogas stoves which saves them from making repeated and expensive trips to their clients for helping out on repairs.

Adnan is now in a lookout for interested retailers in districts who can stock his stoves in bulk and from whom households or the BCCs may buy directly.

Adnan with his biogas stoves

Mehboob is one of the constructer of biogas installations in Sargodha district. He motivates households to buy the biogas stove. He has a special way of doing this. Even when a household says that they will use the regular CNG stove (already have one, is cheaper) he leaves a biogas stove and encourages them to try it out. He promises that he will take it back if they do not want it when he makes a follow up visit. Most of the times, once the household tries the biogas stove it is sold. He started promoting biogas stoves after encountering continued problem of foul smell in the kitchen of a household where he had installed a biogas plant. His many attempts to address this problem did not work until after 

he changed the stove into a biogas stove.

Mehboob