The government has been implementing the National Domestic Biogas and Manure Programme (NDBMP) from 2006 with the objective of developing and disseminating biogas technology in the rural areas with the ultimate objective of establishment of a sustainable and commercial biogas sector in the country. The Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) with the financial assistance from SNV Netherlands and KFW Germany has set a target of installing 60,000 biogas plants at an estimated cost of US $ 37 million by the year 2010. Of the total amount US $ 8 million is credit from KFW Germany while the rest is grant. So far IDCOL has given pre-construction approval for 6140 plants out of which 4934 have already been completed. According to IDCOL by May this year from January a total of 2000 biogas plants have been completed during the current year (2008) by Partner Organizations (PO) who have been working under NDBMP. The question which is being raised by the knowledgeable circles in the field is whether the multi-million dollar project is realistic in our context. Those who are skeptical of the success of the project do so not without basis as there were efforts to promote biogas use also in early 1980s when HM Ershad was in power. The Ershad government had a plan to install one biogas plant at each of the country's 450 police stations, as a means of popularizing the technology. Environment Pollution Department had installed 152 plants at government's expenditure . Most of those plants which involved a cost of US $ 160 each, went to relatively wealthy families. There is logic in this as to supply enough fuel for the cooking and lighting needs of a family of five, each plant needs about 10 kg of dung dailythe output of at least four cows. In Bangladesh a four-cow owning family is a wealthy family, one which can afford to buy its own fuel wood or cylinder gas. Such families usually do not bother to feed dung regularly into digesters. Thus the experience of biogas project of Ershad period was not all encouraging. The case of China is different where seven million biogas plants were used as energy source as early as 1983 as the country had well established system of rural communes. It needs to be recalled here that in India 75,000 biogas plants did not function smoothly due to shortage of feeding materials in early 1980s. It needs to be stated here that only 26 percent of the households in our country produced the required quantity of feeding materials; 44 percent households produced less than half of the required quantity; 50 percent of the plant received less than 50 percent of the required quantity of feeding materials and 83 percent plants were underfed, revealed a recent study submitted to NDBMP. It said out of 66 plants under analysis, 31 plants were functioning satisfactorily, 21 were functioning partly and the rest were not functioning at all during the investigation conducted on plants installed by BCSIR and LGED from 1997 to 2005. IDCOL provides Tk. 7,000 as investment subsidy to each household for installation of biogas plant as per its set specifications and standards. Increasing of the subsidy amount is reportedly under consideration due to increase in prices of construction materials. According to IDCOL the participating organizations are assigned the task of selecting the project areas and potential customers, construct biogas plants as per approved design and standard and extend after sale services. IDCOL provides subsidy, sets technical standards/specification for biogas plant, develops publicity materials, imparts training and activities related to capacity building of POs and monitor their performances. Cattle holding in general is on decline in Bangladesh, which is seen as a major challenge as regards the implementation of the project. IDCOL officials, however, believe that the country has the potentiality of over one million households having the capacity to install biogas plants.The ever increasing cost of construction materials is seen as another challenge. Partner Organizations (PO) of IDCOL have been experiencing shortage of skilled manpower in construction of biogas plants, which is also having negative impact of implementation the project target. Awareness of the benefits of biogas use for fuel and organic fertilizer is another challenge. The initial failure of the project in early 1980s still haunts the rural people who do not readily believe good words of IDCOL officials regarding biogas plants. IDCOL General Manager SM Monirul Islam said,