In Bihar’s Gaya district, Mahadalit families still cook on smoky wood fires even as biogas plants rise nearby under the Gobardhan scheme.

Gaya, Bihar: In Bihargain village of Gaya district, women from the Manjhi community, listed as Mahadalits, among Bihar’s poorest, begin their day with smoke in their eyes.

Their huts stand barely 50 kilometres from the Raniganj Compressed Biogas (CBG) plant and just three kilometres from a smaller community biogas plant. Yet, none of them have access to clean cooking fuel.

“We go to the forest to collect wood and then cook food by burning it,” said Meena Devi (32). Her husband works as a mason and the family earns about ₹12,000 a month. “It’s not possible for us to afford LPG, and we have not been given any biogas connection.”

Her neighbour, 45-year-old Jitni Devi, tells the same story. “We were given an LPG cylinder once, but only the first refill was free. After that, we couldn’t afford it,” she said. “The smoke gives me a cough and burning in my eyes.”

Just a few kilometres away, cow dung powers clean gas for wealthier farmers. “We’ve heard of the Gobardhan gas scheme,” Jitni added, “but we’ve never been given such a facility.”

A glimpse of a woman cooking on a smoky wood fire (Photo - Yusha Rahman, 101Reporters)

A scheme that skips the poor

Launched in 2018, the Gobardhan or “waste-to-wealth” programme under the Swachh Bharat Mission was meant to turn cattle dung and crop residue into biogas and compost. The idea was simple: cleaner fuel for households and organic fertiliser for fields.

As of October 2024, 1,340 biogas plants had been registered across India of which 14 are functional in Bihar. The state’s implementation is handled by JEEViKA, the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society.

A biogas plant of 60 cubic metres, officials explained, can provide gas to 25-30 families for daily cooking, promoting waste-to-energy systems within rural communities.

“It takes around 20 kilograms of cow dung to generate one cubic metre of gas,” said OP Sankrityayan from the Bihar State Panchayat Resource Organisation, Department of Panchayati Raj. “Those who have cows sell dung to nearby plants and earn some income from it.”

But the scheme’s design favours those who already have land and livestock. The smallest units, meant for households, require at least three cattle per family. Cluster and community plants depend on pooled dung from multiple farmers. The poorest, often landless Mahadalits, own neither.

Mahadalits are a term coined in 2007 by the Bihar government to identify the poorest and most marginalised sub-groups within the Scheduled Castes. The category, not part of constitutional classification, was created to focus on communities that lagged even within Dalits. Mahadalits make up about 10% of Bihar’s population and are typically landless, working as sharecroppers or daily wage labourers for dominant caste groups such as Yadavs.

According to the 2001 Census, over 92% of Musahars are landless. Studies show that 98% of Musahar families have no livestock, the rest keep goats, whose droppings are unsuitable for biogas. “Goat waste lacks moisture,” said Sankrityayan. “It needs soaking and large quantities 12 kilograms to generate just one cubic metre of gas. It’s not feasible.”

The plant, set up as a pilot, mainly benefits families near the site, largely from dominant castes not the Mahadalit communities (Photo - Yusha Rahman, 101Reporters)

Stopgaps in circular economy

The model was designed to create a circular village economy, dung sold to plants, biogas piped back for cooking, and residual slurry reused as manure. But without livestock, Mahadalits have no entry point into this circle.

“The land was rented, cow dung was purchased, and by-products like biogas, electricity, and slurry were sold back to the community…that was the idea,” said Akansha Singh, co-founder of Swayambhu Innovative Solutions. “But the benefits mostly reach dominant castes who own cattle and fields.”

Her organisation once tried to adapt the model for Dalit households in Gaya. “We raised Rs 22 lakh to supply subsidised biogas connections,” she said. “Since they didn’t have cows, we sourced dung from nearby villages and universities.” Families paid Rs 30 a month for cooking gas, while slurry sales sustained the project until the supply chain broke down.

“When Pusa University stopped sending dung, locals started mixing ashes in it,” she said. “The chambers clogged, and the plants shut down. Without ownership of cattle, the model just isn’t viable for the poorest.”

Gobardhan was meant to bring cleaner, decentralised energy to rural India. But in places like Bihargain, it has reinforced old hierarchies because of which energy access in rural Bihar still mirrors caste and class divides. 

In Oiyara village of Patna’s Dhanarua block, a 60-cubic-metre biogas plant processes 1,500 kilograms of cow dung daily and supplies gas to 22 households. The village is dominated by the Yadav community, traditionally cattle owners, while Dalits make up around 23% of the population.

“We buy cow dung at Rs 0.50 per kilo,” said sarpanch Saroj Devi. “Most families here have cows and provide 40-50 kilos each day.” Households without cattle pay Rs 20 per day for gas, while those who supply dung get it at subsidised rates. “If someone provides more dung than the cost of gas, we pay them the difference.”

The plant, set up as a pilot, mainly benefits families near the site, largely from dominant castes. “People from Mahadalit communities live on the outskirts, so they don’t get the gas,” Saroj admitted. Even here, the project has been defunct for ten months. “The operator was paid Rs 7,000 a month,” she said. “Now there’s no money to pay him, so the plant stopped.”

Without livestock, Mahadalits have no entry point into the biogas economy (Photo - Yusha Rahman, 101Reporters)

Systemic exclusion

Experts say such models are built on ownership of land, cattle, and capital, which systematically excludes the poor. “The entire value chain assumes people own livestock,” said an official with a state renewable energy agency. “That doesn’t hold true for Mahadalits or landless labourers.”

The cost of this exclusion is not just economic. For Mahadalit families, dependence on wood and dung cakes means hours spent collecting fuel and years of breathing toxic smoke. Studies show that Scheduled Tribes and Castes have the highest reliance on solid fuels and the highest rates of respiratory diseases like tuberculosis. Indoor air pollution from firewood and dung cakes exposes women and children to particulate matter up to 565 µg/m³, and carbon monoxide levels far beyond safe limits.

The Bihar government has announced plans to establish ten new compressed biogas plants by the end of 2025, backed by investments worth over Rs 1,500 crore. Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary called it “a step toward a cleaner, self-reliant Bihar.”

But for women like Jitni Devi and Meena Devi, that transition remains out of reach. “One gobar gas plant is nearby,” said Jhalwa Devi, another resident of Bihargain. “But we don’t get any benefit from it. I just hope someday we get biogas, so we can cook without this smoke that burns our eyes every day.”

This project is supported by the Internews Earth Journalism Network with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Cover photo - Bihar's Mahadalits begin their day with smoke in their eyes (Photo - Yusha Rahman, 101Reporters)