In an event organised by the Bihar State Pollution Control Board on 7th February 2019 at Patna, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Shri Sushil Modi released two documents – (i) Standard Design of Zigzag Brick Kilns for Bihar and (ii) Case Study on “Bihar’s Experience of Implementing Cleaner Brick Kiln Directive”.
The BSPCB had issued a directive to the brick kiln enterprises in the state to upgrade to cleaner technologies. During the first one and half years, about 1500 kilns (20-25% of the total kilns in the state) have upgraded, and most of them opted for zigzag brick kiln technology. Initial experience showed that there were variations in the designs of zigzag kilns – mostly being adopted from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This also resulted in variations in the kiln performances, and the need for a standard design of zigzag kilns to suit the specific requirement of Bihar was expressed by the brick industry.
As more than 5000 kilns in the state were yet to upgrade to cleaner technologies, availability of standard design can greatly help the industry and expedite the process of technology upgradation. With this objective, the BSPCB constituted an expert committee to review the available designs and recommend a standard design of zigzag kiln for the state of Bihar. The Expert Committee consisted of members from the concerned departments of Government of Bihar (Department of Mines, Department of Industries), brick kiln experts (Punjab State Council for Science & Technology, Greentech Knowledge Solutions), academic institutions (IIT and NIT, Patna) and representatives from Bihar brick industry and two leading brick entrepreneurs and kiln experts from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. With support from Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, Greentech team provided technical support in review of the available designs of zigzag kilns, technical analyses, and development of the standard design. The entire process took about 4 month time.
The cleaner brick kiln directive of the BSPCB was issued in two phases – firstly, as a pilot in February 2016, it was issued to the brick kilns located in five blocks of Patna district only. To assist the brick makers in transition to cleaner technologies, a one-year technical support programme was put in place with the support from Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation. The case study – “Bihar’s Experience of Implementing Cleaner Brick Kiln Directive”, documents the strategy and process of implementation of this technical assistance programme and its outcomes, and draws important learnings from it. The experience and learnings gained during the pilot phase helped in designing the technical support program and its implementation for the next phase when the directive was extended to the entire state in August 2017.
Click here to read the case study on “Bihar’s Experience of Implementing Cleaner Brick Kiln Directive”.
To read the document on “Standard Design of Zigzag Brick Kilns for Bihar”, click on the download button below.