SHIRAGUPPI (DHARWAD DISTRICT): Residents of Shiraguppi village in Dharwad district don't worry about power cuts. Reason: The entire village now uses solar energy to meet some of their power needs. All the 996 buildings in the village, including households, offices, schools, six high-mast lights, Raitha Sampark Kendra, health care centre, religious structures, veterinary hospital, milk union office, among other structures have been using the energy harnessed from the Sun since May this year. The project has been implemented using the Rs 1.5 crore released by the state government to the zilla panchayat.
The village is located about 15 km from Hubballi on the Gadag-Hubballi highway and has a population of 4,980.
Speaking to TNIE, Renuka Chitrapur, Panchayat Development Officer (PDO) of Shirguppi, said that electricity bills in the village have reduced by 50% after using the energy generated by solar rooftop panels.“The work of installation of solar panels commenced in February and completed in May. Every house in the village have single panels which have the capacity to power two lights and one mobile charging point. One light is of 15 Amps and the other 5 Amps,” she said.
The village, however, also depends on the electricity supplied by Hubli Electricity Supply Company (HESCOM) — the state-run power utility.
“The project has been completed by SELCO and supervised by the Public Works Department. SELCO has a contract to maintain the solar panels for five years. But, Rs 20 per month is being collected from each household to fund any major repair works after five years,” she added.
Earlier, panchayats of Kolliwad and Shiraguppi were proposed for the solar power project. However, as the required documents were submitted by the representatives of Shiraguppi before the deadline, the village was selected for the project.
Gram panchayat president Bhuvaneshwari Shivangoudar said the panchayat put a pre-condition to the residents interested in installing solar panels that they had to clear the pending property tax to avail the benefit. This also helped the panchayat as Rs 11 lakh has been collected as property tax this year compared to the average of Rs 5 lakh collected earlier.“The lights that we have fixed will run for around four hours. During rains and power outages, solar lights help us a lot,” she added.
Resident Gurupadappa Angadi said that solar energy has helped the villagers fight power cuts and save on power bills.
“We used to get about Rs 800 as power bill each month. But now it is reduced by half. Residents, who have electrical gadgets such as refrigerator, get a little higher power bill. Though the lights are on for four hours only, most of us do not use them continuously,” he said.