Tannuka Juneja
Palli, a rural village in Jammu and Kashmir’s border district of Samba became the country’s first “carbon neutral panchayat”, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a 500 kV solar power plant. The plant was constructed in a record time of three weeks.
Expressing happiness over Palli becoming the first Panchayat in the entire country to have clean and green power, the PM said, “Palli has shown the way to the country by becoming carbon neutral. Many congratulations to Jammu and Kashmir for this big achievement and development works. There was a time when an official file from Delhi used to take two-three weeks to reach J&K. Today, I feel happy to see that a 500 KV solar power plant has come up in just three weeks.
“The people of the village helped in this project. They provided food for the people involved in the project,” he said.
He called upon the panchayats to join the movement to “segregate waste at the gate and reduce the use of chemical fertilisers”.
Sarpanch Randhir Sharma said that the panchayat is not yet completely carbon neutral and it will take about one and a half years to achieve the target.
A total of 1,500 solar panels have been installed in an area of 6,408 square meters, which will provide clean electricity to 340 houses of the model panchayat under the central government’s “Gram Urja Swaraj” scheme, officials said. The electricity produced would be distributed in the city by local power stations, which would require 2,000 units per day.
