Chief Secretary fixes target of 30,000 installations by March under PM Surya Ghar Yojana

JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on Friday chaired a meeting to take first hand appraisal of the progress made in installation of solar rooftops under PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana in Jammu and Kashmir.

Present in the meeting were Principal Secretary, PDD, Principal Secretary, Finance, Commissioner Secretary, Science & Technology, MD JPDCL/KPDCL, CEO, JAKEDA, Chief Engineers and other concerned officers in person and through virtual mode.

Dulloo emphasised upon the concerned departments to carry out rigorous IEC campaigns to generate awareness among the public about this scheme. He called for creating awareness material in local languages for easy comprehension besides sending bulk SMSs to the targeted consumers.

He directed for reaching out to each panchayat with full fledged programs distributing IEC materials in local languages besides demonstrating educational videos and success stories there. He enjoined upon the Discoms to designate nodal officers among their engineers to accomplish these tasks with relevant feedback to their higher-ups.

The Chief Secretary observed that such schemes are reform-oriented with direct benefits accruing to public. He asked for making concerted efforts to increase the number of applicants and timely installations in favour of each of them. He also fixed a target for the Discoms to achieve installation of around 30,000 solar rooftops across the districts of the UT. He advised for intensifying the outreach campaign till the desired outcomes are achieved.

Principal Secretary, PDD, H Rajesh Prasad, informed the meeting that the financial institutions/banks are extending loans at a rate of 7 percent in order to make the installations easier for the consumers. Besides, the central financial assistance is being directly disbursed among the applicants in their bank accounts only after 15 days of solar rooftop installation by the vendors.

He revealed that the savings under this scheme, even if installed after taking credit from banks, are attractive. He informed that a subsidy of Rs 33,000/kw is being given by GoI with additional subsidy of Rs 3000/kw by UT government upto the installation capacity of 3 kw in favour of domestic consumers. It was further disclosed that around 11,000 applications had been received by the respective Discoms in Jammu and Kashmir divisions while 617 installations had been done till date. It was added that the savings are going to increase with future revisions in power tariff. It was informed that this scheme is going to substantially improve our progress on restricting AT&C losses bringing efficiency in power supply to the consumers.

The Chief Secretary, later, reviewed Solarisation of government buildings through J&K Energy Development Agency (JAKEDA). He asked the department to bring further improvement in implementation of this scheme so that the necessary wattage is achieved before its sunset date.

Commissioner Secretary, Science & Technology, Saurabh Bhagat, while informing the meeting about the overall progress of this scheme revealed that 4108 buildings had been covered thereby installing a capacity of 35.2 MW. In addition, the vendors had installed capacity of 13.6 MW till date.

Regarding the overall quantum of work, it was informed that under Capex a total of 70 MW capacity of grid connected solar rooftops would be installed on government buildings with additional 238 MW under RESCO mode by NHPC and JAKEDA cumulatively.