Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram have received in principle approval from the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to be developed as Solar Cities.
Minister of State for Power, Coal, and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal told the Lok Sabha on December 11 that the two cities were among the 60 cities in the country that were being planned to be developed as Solar Cities.
The Minister also said that 55 of the cities chosen for the programme had already taken up works under the programme. These included Vijayawada and Mahbubnagar in Andhra Pradesh; Guwahati and Jorhat in Assam; Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh; Panaji city in Goa; Mysore and Hubli-Dharwad in Karnataka; Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu; and Puducherry.
The Solar City programme is among a number of projects aimed at generating energy from renewable sources.
The government had recently decided to allocate Rs.1,000 crore to Central public sector undertakings (PSUs) to set up 1,000 MW of grid-connected solar power generation facilities.
A total of 25 solar parks — with a capacity of 500 MW each and requiring Rs.4,050-crore investment — and solar power generation facilities for about 300 MW by the Defence and para-military establishments are also part of the Centre’s renewable energy programme.
A Press Information Bureau release said that the solar parks were to be developed over the next five years and that Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha had given their consent for the establishment of the solar parks.
In another step to give a boost to generation of clean energy, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has decided to take solar, wind, and hydro-power generation projects out of the Red category and place them in the Green category under the Central and State Pollution Control Boards.
