 "1,900 govt buildings solarised in J&K; 20,000 more to be covered by Dec'25")
Nearly 1,900 government buildings have been provided with rooftop solar power plants in Jammu and Kashmir, where 20,000 remaining buildings will be solarized by the end of 2025, an official said on Saturday.
Commissioner Secretary, Science and Technology, Saurabh Bhagat said the government offices have 22,494 registrations to their names across the Union Territory with a sanctioned load of about 486 megawatt.
Bhagat was briefing a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo here to assess the preparedness for saturation of rooftop solar power plants on all the government buildings by December, 2025 in accordance with the target fixed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recently concluded Chief Secretaries Conference in New Delhi, an official spokesman said.
The commissioner secretary said nearly 1,900 buildings have already been solarized either by Jammu and Kashmir Energy Development Agency (JAKEDA) or other departments with a cumulative capacity of 27.61 MW till now.
He said 300 MW could be added by installing these rooftop solar power plants in the remaining 20,000 buildings.
Addressing the meeting, the chief secretary stressed the need for adopting and exploiting the potential of solar energy in the Union Territory as much as possible.
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He advised for holding meetings with the biggest players available in the market like those of NHPC, NTPC or SECI for tapping the potential and studying the feasibility and potential of each government building.
Besides providing the requisite revolving fund to the JAKEDA for this task, he said the government is also open to extending subsidies to the agencies implementing this programme in J&K, he said.
Dulloo advised the department to prepare a model contract and detailed project report for each district after carrying out a survey of identified buildings in the next couple of weeks.
He told them to watch for the successful precedences left by other states or Union Territories in the country.
The chief secretary also stressed on seeking technical assistance from any reputed organisation in order to have a clear road map for achieving this goal, the spokesman said.