In a key step towards access of electricity in rural areas of the Northeast India state of Nagaland, the Mon District Administration and Mithun Rural Development Foundation inaugurated their first of the three proposed mini-grids at Totokchingha village yesterday. It was officially inaugurated by N. Thongwang Konyak, Member of Legislative Assembly from Mon District. The remaining solar mini grids at Chenwetnyu and Longkei will be inaugurated in the next month. The organizations had signed a 20-year agreement to set up Mini-Grids in rural Nagaland in January this year.
Today’s event was attended by the Deputy Commissioner of Mon, Thavaseelan K, IAS. Tiakala Ao the General Manager NABARD, Samit Mitra the Senior Director at Smart Power India, Vijay Bhaskar the Managing Director of MRDF. Shyamal Bera the Senior Manager of MRDF along with Sudeshna Mukherjee the Director of Operations of MRDF and Namrata Ginoya the Senior Manager of World Resources Institute were also present.
These mini-grids for electricity aim to enable last-mile clean energy access, improve livelihoods, support women entrepreneurs, and increase the GDP of the state while reducing emissions. Smart Power India will play an important role in supporting the entire program framework and value chain including design, delivery, and facilitating financial and market linkages. The WRI will be facilitating impact measurement of the project.
Smart Power India covers the spectrum of supply and demand-side issues of rural electricity, its focus is the last-mile customer. Smart Power India exchanges knowledge by promoting and facilitating platforms for networking, knowledge sharing and collaborative research, networking, knowledge-sharing, and collaborative research. The Mithun Rural Development Foundation is an SPV floated specifically for rural development of North-East India through the platform of renewable energy-based mini-grids. The first phase of their work is in the 132 villages of Mon District of Nagaland.
