Brief on Development of Solar Cities in India

Ministry of New and Renewable energy has sanctioned the development of 60 Solar Cities under its Solar Cities scheme. These cities will include 13 Pilot and 5 Model Cities till 12th Five year Plan period (2012 – 2017).  Till now master plan for 49 cities have been made. In 21 cities Stakeholder committees have also been set up and Solar City Cells have been developed in around 37 Solar Cities.

What is a Solar City?

Solar City is a city running on renewable forms of energy. All projects shall be using solar, wind, hydro, biomass etc to address the issue of energy demands. This will help the local government in lifting off the burden from the conventional power generating units and promote eco-friendly energy technologies. It aims towards minimizing the use of conventional sources of energy by 10% at the end of five years.

Objectives of Solar City Scheme

• To enable and empower local governments to address problems related to energy at the urban level.
• Creating a framework for the preparation of Master Plan by assessment of current energy situation and the future demands and action plans.
• Overseeing the enforcement of sustainable energy options by public-private partnerships aka PPPs.
• Involving stakeholders in the process of deliberation and planning.
• Creating awareness in all sections of the society and build capacity in the local government.

Financial assistance under Solar City Programme

Solar City Programme provides ₹ 50 lakh per city depending upon population and initiatives that have been decided by the administration for implementation. The distribution is as follows –

• ₹ 10 lakh for preparation of Master Plan.
• ₹10 lakh for setting up solar city cell and expenditure for 3 years on its functioning.
• ₹ 10 lakh for oversight of enforcement during the three years.
• ₹ 20 lakh for other complementary and supportive activities to be utilized in the tenure of three years.

Cities Under This Scheme

Some of the cities which are covered under this scheme are Dehradun, Haridwar-Rishikesh, Chamoli-Gopeshwar, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Coimbatore, Vijaywada, Bilaspur, Raipur, Agartala,  Guwahati, Jorhat, Hubli, Mysore, Thiruvananthapuram, Ludhiana, Ajmer, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bhubaneswar, Aizawl, Panji City & Environs, Itanagar, Hamirpur, Shimla, Kochi, Amritsar, Agra, Moradabad, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Surat, Nagpur, Kalyan-Dombiwali, Thane, Nanded, Aurangabad, Indore, Gwalior,  Bhopal, Imphal, Kohima, Dimapur, Howrah, Rewa, Shirdi and SAS Nagar Mohali.