Farmers will now ‘produce’ electricity along with crops using alternative or renewable sources of energy as they can set up solar power plants on barren or wastelands and sell the remaining electricity after their consumption to the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation.
UP’s Energy Shrikant Sharma said this while chairing the fifth technical session of the manufacturing sector on the second day of the national webinar-cum-seminar on ‘Sustainable Development: Issues, Strategies and Future Direction of Purvanchal’ organised under the joint aegis of Planning department and Gorakhpur University on the Gorakhpur University campus on Friday.
The energy minister said that four of the sub-stations to be built to buy power generated by farmers under the PM Kusum Scheme in the field of renewable energy would be installed in Purvanchal.
Apart from this, out of 8,000 solar irrigation pumps of the state, 2,882 have been given to Purvanchal, he added.
“The rapid development of Purvanchal is important for the overall development of the state because without the development of Purvanchal, the development of Uttar Pradesh is incomplete,” Sharma said.
“There is a great need for uninterrupted power for sustainable development. In this context, the renewable energy sector currently contributes 6 percent to the energy sector, which the chief minister has targeted to increase to 20 percent by 2021,” he said.
The energy minister said that in the past when the transformer developed a snag in the village, the villagers had to make donations to get it fixed but today the dedicated team was activated as soon as it received the information.
“On getting connections of more than 20 kilowatts, the executive engineers themselves arrive at the connection taker’s place with a box of sweets.
In this session, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited Chairman Arvind Kumar and Purvanchal Power Distribution Corporation Limited MD Saroj Kumar discussed the departmental plans and achievements.
Environmentalist of West Chester Pennsylvania, senior advisor Dr Rajesh Singh, Climate Change Prof PK Ghosh were also present.