Second Innings Stories: Meet the ex-Navy officer Turned Engineer Who Developed India’s First Portable Biogas Plant

Meet Rajagopalan Nair, the 68-year-old retiree from Kerala who has developed the country’s first portable biogas plant after retirement. We at Silver Talkies, love bringing you Second Innings Stories such as this. 

Retirement was the beginning of a secondinnings for Rajagopalan Nair, 68, an ex-Navy officer. Nair studied civil engineering and started his own firm, Hi Tech Bio Solutions in Vasai, near Mumbai. He claims to have developed India’s first portable biogas plant that consumers can use for both domestic and farming purposes.

“This is the first portable biogas plant manufactured in India,” Nair told The Hindustan Times recently. His plant has a noble idea behind it. “My aim was to introduce a system that can eliminate wet wastage produced in scores of households like vegetable and fruit peels, discarded meat, chicken and fish waste, and other forms of wet garbage. With my plant the wastage produced in the household kitchen can be converted into different types of by-products like cooking gas and liquid manure,” he was quoted saying.

Nair says that conventional biogas plants emit a terrible odour, attract pests and other insects. In comparison, his plant converts organic matter into methane gas through a chemical process called anaerobic digestion. A by-product of this process is called slurry, and it can be used as organic manure to grow plants.

Nair received his ISO certification in May 2018. He introduced the plant in Vasai as the Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) gives a 5 percent subsidy in house tax to residents of Vasai and Virar who install biogas plants in their homes. Nair’s portable biogas plant weighs around 350kg and is made of fibreglass. The digester (a large tank) is the main component of the plant, inside which the bacteria does its conversion work.

Kudos to this senior citizen who not only found a #secondcareer post retirement but has also developed something that could help the environment and avoid harmful emmissions!

Featured image courtesy: The Hindustan Times