The Himachal Pradesh government has launched a comprehensive plan to solve the power problem in far flung areas and for this solar power plants are being set up in these areas to provide power supply to residents.

A state government official said that to ensure electricity supply, the state government had set up one kilowatt of grid solar power plants free of cost in 34 houses of Kunnu village and 40 houses of Charang village in Kinnaur district.

Apart from this, 250 watt off grid solar power plants have been set up in the houses of one thousand BPL families in Pangi sub-division of Chamba district in December 2020 so that electrical crisis arising due to breakdown could be avoided, he added.

He said the Pangi area is located at an altitude of 7,000 to 11,000 feet, about 461 km from the Shimla and the government has made a provision of Rs 3.83 crore for setting up off-grid solar power plants for people living below the poverty line.

Pangi resident Ashwini Kumar said the area remains covered with snow for about five-six months due to which the people of the area face electricity problems.”But after the state government set up solar power plants, the electricity problems have now been resolved,” he added.

On the other hand, Neek Ram and Subhash Singh, residents of Killar, said there was only one or two hours of electricity during the winters due to which the children of the school had to face a lot of difficulty in studying. But now the government’s solar plant scheme has proved to be a boon for school children.

The official said the state government had also set up grid connected solar power plants set up in the capital city of Shimla.

“These solar power plants have been installed on the roofs of about 66 government offices in the city which has reduced electricity bills in government offices.

Apart from this, grid connected projects of 23.25 MW have been set up on the ground, which has provided employment to unemployed youth of Himachal,” he said.

He further stated that the government had installed 41 advanced gharats (grinder), 878 advanced chulhas and 17 wind solar hybrid systems at various places in the state. Besides this, 1,64,803 street lights, 69,935 lanterns, 27,713 domestic lights, off grid solar power plant of 3,152.45 KW, grid connected solar rooftop power plant of 14,425.54 KW and 20,24,000 solar water heating systems had been made available to the public.

He said the Planning Commission had started the National Level Integrated Rural Energy Programme in 1981 to solve the complex energy problem in rural areas.The programme was started in Himachal Pradesh by the end of 6th Five Year Plan and the department of Integrated Rural Energy Programme was established for implementation of the programme.

In the state, this programme was first started in the year 1984-85 in two blocks, Theog (Shimla) and Kaza (Lahaul-Spiti), after which the programme was run all over the state.