JOIN USAmasebailu declared solar power gram panchayat
Magsaysay award winner Dr Harish Hande urged youths to get rid of the obsession for social networking sites and indulge in field works to achieve self-reliance in rural India in terms of solar energy.
Delivering keynote address at a programme organised to declare Amasebailu Gram Panchayat declared as the ‘Solar Gram Panchayat’, he said Karnataka is a role model for evolving into a solar energy state as the project is meticulously executed in a phase-wise manner to promote solar energy.
Fieldwork
He said the youths should walk into the field as Google search and Facebook would not develop rural India and solve the problems in the country. The energy independence should be taken up in the form of a revolution which ensured the independence for the country in 1947. Thirty crore of the total Indian population live without electricity even after 70 years of independence. By 2020, the country should be energy independent, he said.
Hande said power shortage is not something to be blamed against the government. It is the result of exhaustion of the available capacity to generate power. Solar energy cannot be controlled by anyone and is available for 12 hours, which can be used as a form of renewable energy extensively. Karnataka model is an appropriate model of solar energy. The model should be replicated all over India, he said.
He added that state has a sturdy foundation through support from various financial institutions like Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Programme (SKDRDP). SKRDP is the single largest institute to finance the solar energy in the country. In the past 20 years nearly 10 lakh students have read under solar lights and have pursued higher studies, he added.
Other states
Hande said the process began in 1994. States like Odisha, Meghalaya and Chattisgarh should follow the model. But Karnataka has failed to market the model. At least two to three students from various universities in UK and USA submit their doctoral thesis on solar energy model adopted by Karnataka, he said.
Speaking after inaugurating the programme, District In-Charge Minister Pramodh Madhwaraj said the Congress-led state government has extensively promoted generation of solar energy. In the past four years, the government has supported the generation of 710 MW of solar energy which is released to the grid. Measures have been taken to at least generate 2000 MW of solar energy and supply it to the grid in the next one year . The government has put a strong base as in next two to three years the state would achieve cent percent power self-sufficiency. Amasebailu Gram Panchayat should be taken up as the role model elsewhere in Karnataka. There is no dearth of funds and the government is encouraging each household to generate solar energy for self-use, he added.