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Prithvi Asthana

20 August 2025 at 5:20:30 pm

Desi method saves LPG at RSS camp

Use of biomass wood stove helped in reducing high cooking cost Mumbai: When the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) decided to hold a 21-day training camp in Jalgaon in the first week of May one of the biggest concerns for the organisers was availability of fuel. The organisation needed two LPG cylinders of 19 kg each for making three meals for 255 participants and 50 managers daily. It would have cost them Rs 6,000 daily and the cost for 21 days on meals on would have touched Rs 1,26,000. It...

Desi method saves LPG at RSS camp

Use of biomass wood stove helped in reducing high cooking cost Mumbai: When the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) decided to hold a 21-day training camp in Jalgaon in the first week of May one of the biggest concerns for the organisers was availability of fuel. The organisation needed two LPG cylinders of 19 kg each for making three meals for 255 participants and 50 managers daily. It would have cost them Rs 6,000 daily and the cost for 21 days on meals on would have touched Rs 1,26,000. It was a time when availability of LPG cylinders was a concern and a costly affair. India’s LPG supply was hit because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The government had hiked the price of commercial LPG cylinder by Rs 993. Then came a desi solution. The RSS decided to use a biomass wood stove that uses renewable energy rather than LPG. The main fuel for this stove was ‘wooden blocks’ prepared from cotton, cow dung or turmeric trees (turkhati). The market rate of the ‘wooden bricks’ is Rs 3 per kg or Rs 150-200 per sack. An RSS swayamsevak from Dhule Rahul Kulkarni has designed this biomass wood stove. He operates an industrial machinery manufacturing company called as ‘Essential Equipments’. The company manufactures renewable energy products like solar thermal systems, bio-gas plant, biomass wood stove, etc. The biomass wood stove proved to be a high success. Its use reduced the daily cooking cost to mere Rs 300 saving around Rs 1,19,700 during the camp period. Not only it helped in reducing cost but also to protect the environment being a source of renewable energy. “We had put a lot of research and development behind this stove, and it was already available. Amid the crisis the stove came in handy to us, and I am happy that we were able to solve this problem. It helped in reducing the cost drastically,” Kulkarni told ‘The Perfect Voice’. Dattatreya Hosable, General Secretary of RSS, who visited the camp for three days, also acknowledged the innovation in cost cutting and saving environment. “I appreciate the efforts taken by the swayamsevaks amid the LPG crisis. Henceforth, RSS will use this method in training camp across the country and I myself will take this solution to all the places,” he said.

Congress bets on dual leadership in Pune

Party’s unprecedented East-West division aims to curb factionalism and revive its fortunes ahead of 2029 polls

Dipti Chaudhari Prashant Jagtap
Dipti Chaudhari Prashant Jagtap

Pune: The Congress party has appointed two city presidents for Pune, marking the first time it has adopted such a structure in the city.


By geographically dividing Pune into eastern and western zones, the party has appointed former Mayor Prashant Jagtap to head the eastern zone and former MLA Dipti Chaudhari to lead the western zone. The entire selection process bears the distinct imprint of State Congress President Harshvardhan Sapkale.


While making these appointments, Sapkale sought to strike a balance between caste representation and gender representation by giving an opportunity to a woman leader. Prashant Jagtap had previously served as the city president of senior leader Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He had opposed the proposal to contest municipal elections in alliance with the faction led by Ajit Pawar. Standing firm on this position, he resigned from his post as city president of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar faction).


Positive Response

Jagtap’s decision received a positive response across Maharashtra. He later joined the Congress party, where he received a warm welcome. At the time, there was considerable speculation over whether the Congress would be able to secure even five seats in the municipal elections. However, largely due to Jagtap’s entry into the party, 15 Congress corporators were elected, effectively halting the party’s downward slide in Pune. Recognising both his performance and his studious approach to politics, Sapkale entrusted him with the responsibility of leading the city unit. The prevailing sentiment within the Pune Congress is that Sapkale has carefully nurtured a young leader and assigned him a role commensurate with his abilities.


Dipti Chaudhari, the newly appointed city president for the western zone, is a former Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) and a former Mayor of Pune. She has remained consistently active in party work and is regarded as a dedicated grassroots leader. Party workers believe her image and organisational experience could benefit the Congress in western Pune.


To curb factionalism within the Pune Congress, the state leadership has introduced structural changes within the organisation itself. Even as the party declined after 2014, factionalism within the city unit continued unabated. On one notable occasion, during protests organised against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two separate demonstrations were held by rival factions of the same party. Many within the Congress believe the then state leadership should have intervened decisively at the time. Instead, no corrective action was taken and factionalism only deepened further.


Road Ahead

Congress workers are now hopeful that Sapkale’s firm decisions will help rein in these divisions. Sapkale has undertaken the task of rebuilding the party organisation with a clear focus on the 2029 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections. During the recent by-election in Baramati, he asserted the Congress party’s rightful claim over the seat and also declared that the party would contest the 2029 Assembly election from Baramati independently. In keeping with that broader strategy, he has now initiated efforts to expand the Congress party’s organisational presence in Pune.


At present, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) also has two city presidents in Pune — Sunil Tingre for the eastern zone and Subhash Jagtap for the western zone. In the past, parties such as the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have similarly experimented with appointing multiple city chiefs.


Both the Congress and the BJP are national parties, and given Pune’s political significance, the prevailing practice until now had been to appoint a single city president to represent the entire organisation during city-wide programmes and political campaigns. The Congress has now departed from that model. It remains to be seen whether this revised organisational strategy succeeds in curbing factionalism and strengthening the party in Pune.

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