CB Bureau
The Tripura government has announced plans to make Agartala a ‘solar city’, replacing at least 10 per cent of regular power use with solar energy. Inaugurating a 50-kilowatt solar power plant at the Agartala Municipal Council head office, the state Urban Development Minister Manik Dey declared that ‘Agartala city would be the first “solar city†in northeast India within the next few years.’
‘Solar power is the sustainable and viable energy for both cities and remote areas. Electricity crisis would not be solved in the country unless we use non-conventional energy like solar power in a big way,’ the minister said.
An official of the Agartala Municipal Council said a master plan of Rs 452.32 crore has been undertaken to make Agartala a solar city. The union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) will bear 90 per cent of the cost, while the Tripura government will take care of the remainder cost.
As part of the master plan, solar hot water systems will be installed in all hotels, nursing homes, school hostels, government circuit houses and bungalows, hospitals and health centres, tourist lodges, temples and the governor’s residence. The city’s street lights and other lights in public places will also be operated on solar energy.
Informing that 700 hamlets and 50 villages in remote areas in the northeastern state have already been provided solar energy, benefiting more than 35,000 families, Tripura’s Science, Technology and Environment Minister Joy Gobinda Debroy expressed his concern about ‘theft of battery and solar panel’, which is a major problem facing the authorities in implementing the solar electrification programme.
“To popularise ‘solar energy’, lakhs of specially-designed ‘solar caps’ and ‘solar torches’ would be distributed among students in the state,†he stated. Under the Tripura Renewable Energy Development Authority, about 80,000 solar lanterns have been distributed to poor families in both urban and rural areas, and around 66,000 small and medium hot water plants have been installed.
The Agartala solar city project is part of MNRE’s ‘Development of Solar Cities’ programme, which aims to turn 60 Indian cities into solar cities by encouraging local governments to adopt renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency measures. Of these proposed solar cities, eight are in the northeastern region: Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, Agartala in Tripura, Guwahati and Jorhat in Assam, Aizawl in Mizoram, Imphal in Manipur, and Kohima and Dimapur in Nagaland.