Thursday, August 28, 2014: The national border will be illuminated soon as the government plans to bring in solar power plants here. Some will be installed in a way to fence the border too. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come out with this proposal that the government will set up 1000 MW solar plants on the defence land and electricity will be supplied at a fixed rate of Rs 5.5 per unit for 25 years.
Now armed forces will get electricity and the proposal has arrived at a time when the Centre is planning to de-control diesel prices. Indian Army is the largest consumer of diesel in the country. A draft proposal has been prepared by the new and renewable energy ministry and it will get circulated for inter-ministerial discussions before it gets tabled for Cabinet approval.
The idea was first shared by Modi when he interacted with officials from the MNRE. An official in this ministry said, “The plan is to tap the solar potential in collaboration with the defence ministry at border areas which are mostly barren or abandoned lands.” Minister of state for power, coal and renewable energy Piyush Goyal said that the government is sincerely concerned about those thousands of households which have no electricity access and therefore renewable energy sources will be deployed in a big manner now. The minister also met solar power producers, equipment manufacturers along with MNRE and Ministry of Defence officials.
