In an ambitious scheme aiming to provide local employment opportunities and targeted for benefit of returnees, the Uttarakhand Government has roped in the cooperatives, industry and power departments for setting up small solar based units in rural and mountainous Uttarakhand.
Termed the ‘Chief Minister’s Solar self employment scheme’, the government is planning to develop 5000 small and marginal farmers in nine mountainous districts of the State as solar entrepreneurs. The Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA) would sanction solar power plants of capacity 25 MW to 100 MW under the scheme. One of the salient features of the scheme is that the Cooperative banks would provide 70 to 90 percent of loan to the rural entrepreneurs.
To make the scheme more attractive the government has also decided to extend the benefit of the Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) to the beneficiaries.
A land of two Nali (400 square meters) is required for the plant. To further incentivize the entrepreneur the government would provide help in setting up bee cultivation, vegetable farming and herbs in the land where the power plant is located.
The Additional secretary power, Captain Alok Shekhar Tiwari said that the tentative cost of a 25 MW solar power plant is about Rs 10 lakhs.
A 25 MW plant roughly produces 38000 units of power in a year. The power produced by the entrepreneur would be purchased by the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) and for it a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is inked between the corporation and the producer.
Tiwari added that an entrepreneur can get annual revenue of Rs 1.70 lakh from a 25 MW power plant. It is learnt that the scheme would soon be launched by Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat after which the UREDA would invite online applications for the scheme and the projects would be allotted on a first come and first serve basis.