Jammu and Kashmir to light up 191 remote villages with solar energy

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated:

The beneficiaries are required to buy a small component of about Rs750 whereas assistance of more than Rs11,000 is available from central government.

In a bid to save energy, Jammu and Kashmir government under its Green Campaign will light up 191 remote and mountainous hamlets with solar energy.

"The state government will light up 191 remote villages and hilly hamlets in J&K with solar lights after lighting up border tehsil of Gurez in North Kashmir,"
officials of Science and Technology Department told PTI.

In this direction, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has agreed to provide 41,000 additional solar home lighting systems to 191 villages at a cost of Rs54 crores under a project drawn by J&K Science and Technology Department, they said.

The beneficiaries are required to buy a small component of about Rs750 whereas assistance of more than Rs11,000 is available from central government, they said.

The solar plants will also be provided to Dargah Sharief Hazratbal in Srinagar, Mata Vaishno Devi in Reasi district, Ziarat Charar-e-Sharief in Budgam besides, Raj Bhavans and state legislature complexes at Jammu and Srinagar capital cities, the officials said.

The solar power plants would also come up at the state's 22 health institutes, they said.

Situated close to the Indo-Pak border in northern Kashmir's Kupwara district, mountain locked Gurez has shown the way for solar lighting in the state. As many as 27 remote and mountainous hamlets in Gurez have been provided with 3,726 solar home lighting systems till now.