Prime Minister’s Office Deputy Secretary Mangesh Ghildiyal convened a meeting on Monday to review the concerted efforts to make Ladakh carbon neutral.
The officials presented their projects on carbon neutrality and discussed their future action plans towards making Ladakh a carbon-neutral region.
Ghildiyal, while reviewing the projects, emphasized that since this is the announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the targets have to be met on time. He stated that the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy have a major role to complete the project.
He added that the vision of Carbon Neutral Ladakh should be a ‘Citizen Movement’ and that can be achieved by focusing on ‘energy literacy’ to be imparted to the masses. Further, he added that people must strive for ways to reduce their carbon footprint to achieve this vision of Carbon Free Ladakh. He further said that the support of the people along with projects aimed at carbon neutrality can help us achieve this vision of Prime Minister Modi which is of utmost importance and we have to honour it.
Power secretary Ravinder Kumar said that it’s important to develop Solar Passive Technology in Ladakh which would be successful in a region like Ladakh. He also suggested that an independent agency is required to monitor the developments. He also proposed an action plan to spread awareness on carbon neutrality especially in winter, at events such as Chadder Trek and other sports events.
Numerous upcoming projects in the fields of solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy, clean hydrogen, small, mini & micro hydro were discussed in the meeting. Secretary Ravinder further informed that geothermal energy is being explored in Ladakh for the first time in India and a source of clean energy utilizing the earth’s core temperature was planned. He also informed that ONGC Energy Centre (OEC) is taking up the project with initial drilling and setting up of a 1MW mobile plant. He also informed that further exploration for commercial development of the source in the second phase is planned.
Furthermore, he added that as Ladakh has a good potential for wind energy, numerous sites were identified for setting up of 30 MW Wind/ Solar Hybrid plant at Shashithang Kargil.