CS maps strategy for UT’s renewable energy future

Jammu, Jan 06: In a significant push towards harnessing solar energy and unlocking its potential in the Union Territory (UT), Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo chaired a meeting today to evaluate the UT’s preparedness for achieving the saturation of rooftop solar power plants on all government buildings by December 2025, aligning with the target set by the Prime Minister during the recently concluded CS Conference in New Delhi.
The meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary, Commissioner Secretary, Science & Technology and CEO, JAKEDA and other senior officers of the concerned departments.
In the onset of this meeting the Chief Secretary emphasised upon making a robust strategy for time bound delivery of the same without any fail. He stated that solar energy is clean and less expensive so it is in the fitness of things to adopt and exploit its potential in the UT as much as possible.
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 here in the UT.
Dulloo asked for conducting a day-long workshop with such players and apprising them about the interest before this solarization mission here. He further revealed that besides providing the requisite revolving fund to the JAKEDA for this task the government is also open to extending subsidy to the agencies implementing this programme in the UT.
He advised the department to prepare a model contract and DPR 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/UTs in the country. He also stressed on seeking technical assistance from any reputed organisation in order to have a clear roadmap for achieving this goal.
In his presentation the Commissioner Secretary, S&T, Saurabh Bhagat revealed that the UT government offices have 22494 registrations to their names across the districts of J&K with a sanctioned load of about 486 MW. It was revealed that nearly 1900 buildings had already been solarised either by JAKEDA or other departments with a cumulative capacity of 27.61 MW till now.
Moreover it was revealed that approximately 300 MW could be added by installing these rooftop solar power plants in the remaining 20,000 buildings. It was added that each department has to provide information like a list of their buildings along with sanctioned connected load, shadow free rooftop space, geo-coordinates and other relevant details about such structures here.