In a bid to make Maharashtra more resilient towards climate change, the State Government said Thursday a draft of the district-level Climate Action Plan has been prepared by the Department of Environment and Climate Change.
Darade was speaking at a town hall held by the Department of Environment and Climate Change under its programme, Majhi Vasundhara and Climate Voices under Mission LiFE. Along with representatives of administrations, common citizens who also took part in the town hall highlighted the importance of solar energy towards building a climate-resilient state.
“This will not remain limited to a handbook as we are aiming towards implementing it holistically at the ground level. The final draft of this plan has been prepared and we have sent it to the government for its approval following which it will be implemented,” said Pravin Darade, Principal Secretary, Department of Environment and Climate Change.
The agenda of the town hall was about stressing the growth of solar energy in Maharashtra and the importance of solar power roof-tops, decentralised implementation policy, and regulatory strategies.
Darade said the environment department has mandated that developers who are carrying out projects expanding across 20,000 square-metre areas should focus on sustainable development.
Representatives of various community groups said they are adopting their financial framework to encourage more people towards switching to solar power.
Murtaza Sadriwala, Trustee, Burhani Foundation, said while adopting solar energy is the way forward, the expensive cost of the cells is preventing many people from making the switch.
“To encourage people from our communities, we have chalked out our financial framework through which any applicant that writes to us expressing interest in setting up solar cells, receives an interest-free loan of Rs 10 lakh from the trust. This money could be repaid to us in instalments within four or five years. Therefore, the flexibility of payment is encouraging several people from our community to come forward and adopt these measures,” Sadriwala said.
Sadriwala said his foundation’s journey towards implementing solar energy began in 2021 when they started the Solar Power Intervention Programme, through which they aimed towards powering up mosques, dargahs and community halls using solar energy, along with sensitising people about the threat of climate change.
Ravindra Mane, Sarpanch, Manyachiwadi village, Satara district, said the government should now consider providing subsidies to villages for switching to solar energy in the same way they are giving subsidies for building toilets.
“In villages, the primary challenge is that almost everyone lacks financial backing as they depend on farming for their livelihood. However, it’s also important to make people understand that solar power provides financial benefits and is much cheaper than diesel and fossil fuel, but since the installation cost of solar cells is very high, villagers are apprehensive towards making the switch,” Mane said.
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He said his village is being run entirely on solar power and it took more than 100 women from different self-help groups to come together and convince the villagers about the benefits of green energy.
“Earlier, we used to experience power outages regularly, which would affect our daily lives severely. Therefore, when I gave the idea of setting up solar cells almost everyone resisted. However, it took me a lot of convincing that resulted in making the change,” he added.
“Today, each household saves up to Rs 50,000 every month with the help of solar power. Therefore, to expand this plan at a larger scale, government subsidies and organised sensitisation programmes would help a lot”.
