The Uttar Pradesh government plans to develop Agra as a solar city in order to save the Taj Mahal from pollution, said a minister today.
The proposal for making Agra a solar city was approved by Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in 2009 following which Agra Nagar Nigam made a master plan which was approved by the government of India in 2012, Minister for Alternative Energy Sources, Vijay Kumar Misra told the Vidhan Sabha.
Misra was replying to a question by Dharampal Singh of BSP.
The minister said that a detailed project report (DPR) in this regard was almost ready which would soon be sent to the Union government.
To another question by Mukesh Kumar Srivastava (Congress) the minister said that solar energy policy 2013 is being implemented in the state.
The minister said that a target of generating 500 MW solar energy by 2016-2017 has been fixed.
Meanwhile, BJP staged a walkout in the question hour expressing dissatisfaction over the reply of Food and Civil supplies minister, Raghuraj Pratap Singh for providing foodgrains to the poor not covered under the BPL cards scheme.
The Congress also staged a walkout when they failed to get a satisfactory reply from Singh to their supplementaries on another question.
