Total electricity of all remote villages by 2012

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy proposes to create SEZ for production of equipments required for renewable energy. The States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand have offered to give land for this purpose. Inaugurating the National Conference on Renewable Energy, Shri Vilas Muttemwar, Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy disclosed that acquisition of land and other facilities as well as details are under discussion.

All the remote villages in the country will get minimum 1Unit electricity during the Eleventh Plan i.e. by March 2012 under renewable energy. Declaring this target the Minister said that 4000 remote villages and hamlets have been covered under the rural electrification under Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana through Renewable Energy so far. The Ministry is working on such electrification to cover another 2700 villages.

During the Tenth Plan, the Renewable power electricity addition has been around 25 per cent of the total installed capacity. The wind resource potential utilization is 16 per cent in comparison with less than 2 per cent for Europe and less than 1 per cent for the United States. .

Regarding high electricity potential, Shri Muttemwar said it lies in our North East Region, which by and large remain unexploited. A lot more would need to be done to ensure that ethanol supplies whether from molasses, agricultural based or various residues can be sustained in the future without impugning of food security. He also said that plantation of Jatropha will be increased without disturbing agricultural land.

Source: http://www.pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=30960