Wednesday, July 10, 2013: The MNRE or Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has come up with a financial assistance amounting to Rs 4.4 crores for the flood affected households in Uttarakhand. According to the ministry, this fund will go in as an investment in 20,000 solar lanterns for areas that have been totally cut off the grid from the recent devastation.
An official release stated that the MNRE will be bearing total cost of the release for the same. The project would be implemented by the Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency in Dehradun. The cost of each individual lantern comes up to Rs 2,200.
The move was decided immediately after the calamity had stuck the state as Union Minister for MNRE, Farooq Abdullah dispersed orders to his panel to discuss with the Uttarakhand Government about how they could be of help.
The Ministry, in turn, received requests to issue solar lanterns for the affected household and this was immediately put into process. The solar lanterns will be helpful in providing an alternative light source in far flung and the worst affected areas that have been cut off grid. The extension repair work would be taking months during which the lanterns would be used by the villagers to meet their daily needs.
In a similar process, the MNRE had funded Aila hit areas with 14,000 solar lanterns in West Bengal in 2009-10 and flash flood affected areas in Sikkim with 14,900 lanterns during 2011-12 earthquakes.
