In what could be called as a milestone in Digital India project, one million children across the nation with little or no electricity access will be able to study four hours a day for the entire year thanks to IIT-Bombay’s ambitious Million Solar Urja Lamp (SoUL) project.
Started two years ago in four states of the country, the project under ‘Right to light’ motto along with Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has provided a solar powered lamp that consumes less than one unit of energy in the entire year at the cost of Rs 120. IIT-B already has submitted a proposal to MNRE and other related ministries to further expand the project and implement it across the nation.
The objective of the programme was to provide clean light for study purposes to every child in the country in the fastest and most cost effective manner. Once after developing the easily assembled solar energy lamps, IIT-B team joined hands with every NGO, present on grassroots level so that the project also provided employment opportunities in localities to assemble, distribute, use and repair the lamps easily. Secondly to expand their reach, the models were designed in such a manner that it could be replicated in parallel in multiple blocks across districts and states with a timeline of 90 days. During the period, the villagers were taught to assemble, distribute and repair the lamps.
With the financial support of MNRE, Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust and Idea Cellular Pvt Ltd, IITB has managed to touch more than 10,900 villages, covering 97 blocks and 23 districts spanned across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa until now. Moreover, about 54 assembly and destruction centres and 350 repair centres are also providing 1,409 villagers who had no source of income, new means of employment. Significantly, 77 per cent of the blocks belong to tribal community and 83 per cent educationally backward blocks were roped inside the MSP project.
