Watermill Upgradation :
Nearly Two hundred thousands watermill in Himalaya and two millions across the world have been serving rural communities since 3rd -4th centuries. These mills mainly used for grinding and dehusking. Fortunately these mills still serve remote local communities in absence of any other option. There was no other means except to revive these mills as these were most decentralized community service system. By improving these mills, three major impacts are achieved.
Reviving 200 hundred thousands villages with improved services.
Decentralized clean energy availability.
Respect to tradition.
These mills have always been operational and a slight technology inputs upgrades their efficiency 3-4 times. Their sustainability character remain intact with these mills as inputs are totally localized and are in common access.
The mills are true representative of clean energy, pro- environment and socio- cultural local efforts. These mills will always have a role as no other energy option can compete them in rural areas. It is local resource run device with direct access to community.
This initiative was launched with an aim of revitalizing the century old and probably the first water based rural entrepreneurship which existed in the Himalayan region. Such mill runs on the same principal as large dams. The watermills "Gharat" however faced with the major setback after advancing modern mills running on diesel and electricity.
The first thing that was done on mill was introducing 'bearing' which replaces the traditional support made of stone and wood. This increased the efficiency of the watermills by three times. This was the shining opportunity for the fading mill practices of the Himalayan region. Once the news spread across, various watermill users came together to adopt this techniques.
Initially, most of these watermills were using wooden central wheel and blades that were inefficient giving low productivity. HESCO through locally available fabrications introduced metallic turbines improving the efficiency and introduced the concept of generating power from these turbines. Although, earlier efforts had little impact due to high cost, poor adaptability and acceptability of highly sophisticated technology .
In 1990-neglected water millers organized themselves under HESCO to call upon Government for their welfare. Their simple demand was to revive mills as this was the only option for remote communities. Government awareness was than utilized to streamline a program for mills. Government of India; Ministry of renewable energy launched a scheme for millers. This helped miller to get partial technology and resource support. Since watermill was everyone concern in community, the miller's movement received positive support for all section of society.
Since mill was an indication of community owned system, its success has helped planner to take similar approach to others community program. While community was benefited with simple system approach, a clear vision thus was formed on decentralized community owned system.
Water-millers had clear long and short-term benefits. The diminishing system which was turned disused due to advent of diesel and electrical devices, returned with full use. The new efficient mills compete well with other invading systems. These mills came back in new Form.
Since mill was serving one purpose only, these were underutilized earlier. With new intervention, they became multipurpose. Electricity generation to other local employment applications made them multipurpose in villages. The villagers look forward to generate local resource based cottage industry. Moreover many villagers which were in dark due to grid inaccessibility, were illuminated through mills.
These mills have served directly to the community for several local services. At the same time clean energy through mill cut carbon emission. A rough estimate reveal that each mill cut 1 kg of carbon per hour annually emission annually thus helping environment conservation. And if one calculates this to the total number of present and the future number of mills, the figures are quite substantial.
Since mills are community owned system, minimal available resource both human and others make mill multipurpose. It is the main reason why mills have had fair replication potential.
Watermill success set an example and a separate watermill scheme has been lunched by Government of India under Ministry of renewable energy. Another ministry of small-scale industry has also given mill a status of cottage Industry.
The mill utility issue has caught international status as mills are abundant in Africa and Asian Continents. Realizing the role of mills an International conference of water millers is proposed in 2008-2009.
Watermill use and application are continuous process. A constant input would improve overall efficiency and other possible applications.
The mills have since drawn international attention, it is China, Nepal, Pakistan, India and African countries have begun to ponder on the issue.
This program is innovative simply for two reasons:
The technology has been upgraded on the line of community skill economic status and post service ability. The simple innovation has done wonder and multiplied fast as everything was within community reach. It has been done in a manner that respects local cultures and customs and not seen as one which is 'imposed' by outsiders.
The approach to mill up gradation was done through networking of millers under water millers Association. This begun from state and reached National level. HESCO/technology and other support go to the se associations for implementation.
After failure of many intervention done by National and International agencies to improve the mill through sophisticated turbine system. It mainly failed due to high tech nature could not match community skill, high cost and unavailable post installation services needs
The whole technology has been upgraded exactly on traditional line. Wooden turbines were replaced with iron. The wheel arrangements were done for several other applications.
There is fair scope of future improvement in the system as local services for such improvement exist in village. Thus the present mills also offer modification as per local need.
No patent right was claimed by the organization as it believes that community-to-community services must not be brought under any limitation. This also helped to replicate the technology.
The total investment for a mill up gradation range from $1000 to $1500. This amount subsidized by the Government to promote clean energy. The revenue flow chart is given below:
For one unit installation:
Input: Total Rs. 90,000/- according Indian currency, $ 2,0108.30/- US dollar
