Every Indian District Soon To Host One Model Solar Village

MNRE has planned to invest Rs 1 crore for each such village.

Every district of the country is now all set to host one model solar village. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has now come out with detailed guidelines to make this a reality. As per the norms, these model solar villages will be developed as components of the PM Surya Ghar scheme with a total financial support of around Rs 800 crore.

MNRE said that around Rs 1 crore will be spent on each of these model villages to make them the mascots of green power adopters. The ministry said that under the plan, each of these villages will see establishment of 24×7 solar-powered village covering all the households and public areas.

PM Surya Ghar: Government Had Earmarked Rs 800cr For Model Solar Villages

As per the plan, the programme will promote technologies like solar-based home lighting systems in all households, solar-based water systems in the village, solar pumps for agricultural purposes and the installation of solar street lights covering village roads and common village infrastructure. The MNRE norms mostly large villages will be eligible for selection.

“The village must be a revenue village with a population size of more than 5,000 as per the latest published Census. However, in case of special category States (States/UTs of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Ladakh, States in the North East including Sikkim, UTs of A&N and Lakshadweep), revenue villages with population size of more than 2,000 as per the latest census would be eligible,” the norms read.

It said that these villages will be selected under a ‘challenge more’. “ Under this mode, villages in a district shall be mobilized for installing distributed solar installations especially under PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana and other government schemes such as PM-KUSUM. After the challenge period is over, the villages will be assessed on the total distributed RE capacity installed within the revenue border of the village and the village with the highest capacity (cumulative) in the village boundary shall be chosen as the Model Solar Village for that district,” the norms read.

The norms also talked about establishment of a Model Solar Village Implementing Agency (MSVIA). These MSVIAs has been mandated to develop a Detailed Project Report for transitioning the village to a solar powered village. 

“In this DPR, the Agency can choose any mix of RE technologies based on local context and potential to utilize the Central Financial Assistance provided under the scheme. The Agency may also create a potential RE plan for the villages by maximizing deployment of RE in the village in the Government buildings,” the MNRE norms said.