Project Outcome:

Three Althaus Cooking Stoves of 75 liters capacity each with hot water circulation system has been installed resulting in the reduced consumption of fire wood by 50%.

Prior to the project, the Kidhekhar Buddhist Institute was using 2-2 and a half truck loads of firewood per month. Now it has come down to 1 truck load for cooking purposes. The improved stoves have also improved the health and hygiene of the both kitchen and the cooks.

With the technical backstopping from the Divisional Forest Office, Forestry Sector and the Dzongkhag Administration, the resident monks were made aware on the ways and means of environmental conservation at local and global level. The institute in turn has incorporated similar education as part of their routine religious subject and will further be disseminated whenever the institute performs religious rites elsewhere.

After the project, the institute could reduce dependency on fire wood to approximate amount of Nu. 67,200.00 (USD 1,552.00) in a year, hence achieving a balance between the environment conservation (saving trees) and enhancing the livelihood of the monks.

Problems or difficulties im project implementation:
As such the KLCGT did not face much difficulty during the project implementation except that since the project was a technical one, the proper installation site (which should be at a certain height) of the solar hot water system was not looked into during the project development. As such, the KLCGT needed to construct a wall which was expensive and had to mobilize fund for the same from other areas.

Lessons Learnt from the project implementation:
The grantees learnt that it is very important to encompass all items/components of works and be incorporated as a package while writing any project proposal especially the technical aspects. Otherwise, the implementation of the project activities get delayed while trying to mobilize that extra cost, resources and the time to achieve the objective of the project.