‘Link govt land for solar firms to investment in panels, cell mfg’

Jaipur: As large solar projects and parks keep mushrooming taking over expansive territories of the desert and semi-barren landscape, NGOs, locals, and some in the industry have started raising concerns that range from elimination of natural ecosystems to how the state government is losing out to a real estate play.They said solar generation projects do not create even a fraction of jobs and economic opportunities as other sectors do. Any government land allotment should be linked to investments in solar equipment manufacturing which has far better potential to create jobs and avenues for economic empowerment of local people, they said.Sumer Singh Bhati of Sanwata village in the Jaisalmer district who has been leading the villagers to protect orans (community-conserved sacred spaces) said because of the large-scale solar projects, the mercury has crossed 50-degree Celsius.Bhati said, “The loss of grazing land has created difficulties for rearing sheep, cows, and camels. Additionally, the heat generated by the solar panels laid over miles and miles have a damaging effect on the vegetation. It is also causing animal diseases unheard of before.”Bhati is also canvassing support of the villagers not to give private land to solar developers. Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Bikaner account for much of the 21,000MW solar projects installed in the state over lakhs of hectares of land. Some have also questioned the economic impact of these projects.DD Agarwal, director at Samta Power, an NGO working in energy domain, said, “Solar power generating projects create least number of jobs, compared to any other sector. That’s why allotment of government jobs should be linked to solar equipment, including panel and cell manufacturing, which can create jobs and other economic activities. It has already become a real estate play which will have a negative impact.”Currently, Rajasthan does not have many solar panel manufacturing units besides ReNew Power, Insolation Energy and Grew Energy though JSW Energy, Waaree Energies, HPCL-Mittal and Axis Energy have shown interest. In fact, JSW Energy has been customized package, but land has not been allotted to it so far.Rajkumar Gupta, a solar expert, said, “The government prefers to allot land to those projects who have already signed PPAs. The criteria for govt land allotment should be linked to investments in solar panel and cell manufacturing. For example, those who invest Rs 1,000 crore, 25% of it should be in manufacturing to get govt land.” Currently, over 30% of the land used for solar projects has been allotted by govt while the rest are on private land. Companies mostly use private land on lease.