A great votary of solar energy IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi has welcomed the German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledging one billion euro to boost solar energy in India.
Expressing his happiness MD tweeted” #IFFCO is happy 2 learn dt #Angela Merkel pledged €1bn 4 #Solar Energy. Boost will help in overall villages devp #Merkel in India @narendramodi”.
Earlier, about 18 MoUs including a new German assistance package for over 1 billion euro for solar projects in India were sealed during inter-governmental consultations led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor Angela Merkel in New Delhi.
IFFCO which has launched solar projects in the adopted villages earlier wished to fund research in cost effective storage of Solar power in the past. Recently Awasthi had posted photos of adopted villages which looked as if they were from European countries.
In the latest tweet Awasthi lauded Baripatha, a tribal village near Bhubaneswar which made history by becoming the first village in the state to be powered entirely by solar energy.
Dr. U S Awasthi tweeted” #Happy 2 learn abt 1st 100% #Solar powered village #Baripatha in #Odisha.People-community involvement & cooperation can empower our villages.”
Media report says many solar projects elsewhere in the country are floundering but Baripatha is different. Its model is low-cost, low-maintenance and community-owned.
IPS officer Joydeep Nayak, the prime mover behind the new initiative says this model can be replicated all over Odisha to provide power to its nearly 3,900 villages.
