Rajasthan Dungarpur area will house a first-of-its-kind solar panel manufacturing plant which will be fully operated by tribal women.
The manufacturing plant will be built as a part of joint venture tagged as ‘World Bank-funded rural livelihood development project’. The joint venture is between the state government, IIT-Bombay and Rajasthan Grameen Ajeevika Vikas Parishad (Rajeevika).
As per the plan, solar panels with capacity varying from 1 W to 300 W will be manufactured at the plant. “The venture is an ideal example of a decentralised project on the lines of similar ventures in China and Korea where different components are manufactured independently at different locations,” former district collector Surendra Kumar Solanki.
The tribal women will be given proper training to learn all appropriate techniques to operate the plant effectively and efficiently. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay have taken up the charge of educating the tribal women with the business aspects of manufacturing a solar plant.
The group had marketed more than 40,000 solar lamps in the last six months, making a profit of more than R30 lakh, Solanki informed.
This is a lucrative project with huge capital involved in its construction. A sum of Rs 1 crore has been allocated for the project. Gradually, profits earned will be ploughed back into the capital. A profit percentage of 30% will be ploughed back into the initial capital.
This project will encourage and empower many tribal women who will explore various job opportunities available at this solar plant.
In 2015, the district administration signed a memorandum of understanding(MoU) with the IIT Bombay. This MoU was around starting a solar distribution plant in remote areas of the district. This ideation is being fuelled by forming a partnership with cluster level federations of Rajeevika.
The lamps were subsidized to make them affordable for people, Solanki said. The initiative focused on the local development of solar enterprise, for which women, self-help group members were trained to become capable of assembling the lamps, he said.
The solar panel manufacturing house which stations varying solar panels will become operational by the July first week.
