Dimapur, Jan. 25 (EMN): Mon district administration and the Mithun Rural Development Foundation (MRDF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for 20 years to set up mini-grids in rural Nagaland.
The MoU was aimed at encouraging the use of a clean energy platform to increase local household incomes by 15-20% per annum. The first three solar mini-grids would be installed in three economically-constrained villages of Longkei, Totok Chingha and Chenwetnyu, informed an update from the district administration.
MRDF is an SPV that is specifically designed to serve the electricity access needs of the north-eastern states and is supported by organisations such as Smart Power India (SPI), ONGC and NABARD. The goal of the initiative was to enable last mile clean energy access, improve livelihoods, support women entrepreneurs and increase the GDP of the state, while reducing GHG emissions.
It stated that SPI would play an important role in supporting the entire programme framework and value chain including design, delivery and facilitating financial and market linkages. The programme envisaged improved access, covering 1000 villages in the next seven years. It added that the first three mini-grids would be set up as early as February 2022 in Longkei, Totok Chingha and Chenwetnyu villages.
The memorandum signed was aimed to align with the UN SDGs and reduce the carbon footprint along with generating green jobs.
The setup of the mini-grids would aim to develop the community through an integrated village development programme involving all members of the community and not just the customers. The local administration would facilitate coordination between the village councils/ village development boards and MRDF, while the district administration would assist MRDF by coordinating the efforts of various departments such as health, education, renewable energy, rural development with the work in the villages
Talking about the memorandum, Jaideep Mukherji, CEO of Smart Power India, and Samit Mitra, senior director of Smart Power India said, “We are glad to be a part of this memorandum which aims at sustainable socio-economic development through DRE. It is also equally important to reduce carbon footprint, which would require a collective effort from every level of the society. We look forward to working with MRDF and the government of Nagaland to establish a solar PV based mini-grid to encourage clean energy generation.”
Meanwhile, the deputy commissioner of Mon, Thavaseelan K said, “We fully support MRDF and SPI in their efforts to improve the living conditions of our people in the villages. These clusters are economically backward and DRE mini-grid interventions will bring an all-round development to the region as they will integrate clean, high-quality and reliable energy with livelihoods, agriculture, health, education and public infrastructure. They will also help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 tons per village per annum, which is an encouraging milestone to achieve.”
SPI, a subsidiary of the Rockefeller Foundation, was established in 2015 to develop and scale sustainable models to accelerate electricity access and spur economic development amongst the rural underserved communities, the statement read. It is also committed to creating knowledge and accountability in the public domain through robust evidence-based research and providing field and analytical support to the Government, private sector, implementers, and other donors in their pursuits for rural electricity access.