The Uttarakhand Government is enlisting the support of its various departments including the cooperatives to establish small solar based units in rural and mountainous Uttarakhand. with a view to helping returnees, media reports say.
Under the ‘Chief minister’s Solar self-employment scheme’, the government will develop 5000 small and marginal farmers in nine mountainous districts of the State as solar entrepreneurs.
It is said one of the important features of the scheme is that cooperative banks will give 70to 90 percent loans to the rural entrepreneurs. The Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA) would give 25 MW to 100 MW under the scheme.
Meanwhile, the central govt’s efforts to check migration of rural folks from the villages of Uttarakhand with the help of NCDC’s cooperative development program got a shot in the arms when local dailies reported a decline in migration.
The ambitious co-operative development program, designed as well as implemented by the co-op lender NCDC was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2019. In flat 6 months, results are there for everyone to see, said a NCDC official associated with the project.
Sharing the news clippings of dailies NCDC wrote on social media “NCDC Projects in Uttarakhand yield results on ground. Hon PM @PMOIndia Sh Narendra Modi Ji had launched the projects in February 2019. It achieves reverse migration to villages. Congratulations Dr Dhan Singh Rawat Ji Hon’ble Minister, Govt Coop Dept & NCDC Teams in Uttarakhand”.
Local dailies recount several stories of reverse migration from the villages of Uttarakhand. One of the stories talks about people living in Khartak Village in Uttarakhand which is on the border of Nepal. The report says smiles are back on the faces of the people as they are no longer forced to migrate to other locations.
It is learnt that the village had been abandoned for the last 25 years but farming in the village has given relief to the security forces because it had ceased to be a base camp for Nepali Maoists. It is being reported that the people had left this village 20 years ago because of the lack of basic facilities like electricity, roads and Health. The village is situated amidst the forests.
Now this new initiative of raising a battery of solar entrepreneurs is further going to improve the situation of the countryside, said a state co-operator.