Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy to showcase its green initiatives to other stadiums

Bengaluru: It is not the biggest cricket stadium in the country in terms of area of the playing arena, nor is it the largest when it comes to seating capacity, but the M Chinnaswamy Stadium is way ahead of the others in terms of being environment-friendly. On May 29-30, the stadium will host about 45 sporting associations from across the country to showcase its accomplishment as India’s first eco-stadium.The emphasis will be on four themes: energy, waste, water and sanitation.
Under the Green Wicket initiative, the stadium has become self-sufficient in water and electricity use. The stadium harvests rain water which is reused within the premises, and it boasts a 400 KW solar rooftop plant which generates green energy — the first-of-its-kind stadium installation in the world. The stadium also has a 500-kg capacity biogas plant.
Green Wicket is a project conceptualised in 2013 between the German Agency for Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the state government with Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) as the implementing partner and International Institute of Waste Management (IIWM) as the knowledge partner. As many as 32 of the 46 participants are cricket associations.
P Bineesha, executive director, IIWM said the forthcoming stadium meet will consist of knowledge sharing through stadium tours, workshops and display of technology. IIWM is a key resource centre working with four other government departments.
“The idea is to bring about eco-awareness through cricket,” Bineesha said. “Siemens, the technology company, has worked towards providing environmentally sound solutions for the Melbourne Cricket Ground and they will host a session too. Environmentally conscious systems are seen as trends and are taken up only if it is profitable. Using the KSCA example, we would like to emphasize it is more than that. The water generated from the STP has the perfect nutritional balance for watering the lawn. Cricket stars can also go a long way in enhancing awareness.”
Santosh Menon, assistant secretary of KSCA, said that they were of confident of recovering the investment of over Rs 8 crore by 2020.
“We have saved almost Rs 1 crore in electricity charges from 2015 when the project was set in motion,” Menon said. “We have entered a debit-credit system with Bescom where we sell back green energy to the grid. On a bill of Rs 1 lakh, we save 40%. Our expenditure on water is zero as we don’t rely on the water board, borewells or tankers. In fact, we have a surplus of water almost all the time. We even divert water from public drains which we treat and reuse for gardening. Except dry waste, we treat, reduce, recycle or reuse all other waste we generate.”
The association is in the process of converting all lighting to LED fixtures. The stadium generates approximately 40-50 kgs of wet kitchen waste mainly from the clubhouse that is used to produce biogas.
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SubAir drainage system
One of the most unique additions under the Green Wicket framework has been the SubAir drainage system that sucks water off the surface of the ground at over 30 times the speed of gravity. “It is especially a boon when rain interrupts a match. Even 10 minutes of solid rainfall gets sucked into the ground within eight to nine minutes, without the use of any other mechanism or manpower. Sub-Air was installed at a cost of Rs 4 crore by digging the up the ground and installing the pipeline in a sand-based drainage system connected to a vacuum that sucks the water out and stores it. Not just in terms of time, it benefits all the stakeholders in reducing the time spent to dry the ground,” said Menon.
Green drive
In its first phase, the Green Wicket initiative is set to be rolled out in the following stadiums:
Wankhede, Mumbai
Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Holkar stadium, Indore
JSCA international stadium, Ranchi