Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been championing for solar energy as the cornerstone of his clean energy agenda in his election campaigns in the 2025 Assembly polls. However, he appears to overlook that the highly-publicised Bihar’s first solar village launched by him has died a quiet death.
The 100 kwilowatt solar micro-grid power station at Dharnai village, which falls under the Makhdumpur assembly constituency in Jehanabad district has become completely defunct today. The station has no manpower, no machines or batteries and even the wall-boards to mount the solar panels are missing. Clearly, Dharnai's tag of being a solar-powered village remains only on paper.
The only remnants of the solar village are the rooftop solar panels on the defunct solar micro-grid office, which are visible 100 metres away from the nearby four-lane Patna-Gaya highway. But when one gets closer, the rooms inside the office are deserted.
In November 2020, one could see wall boards, solar batteries and other equipment stored in locked rooms. But, the situation now has gone from bad to worse, and Dharnai villagers have no hope of the solar micro-grid station ever starting again.
Official neglect
Over 11 years ago in 2014, Dharnai village was crowned as Bihar's first solar village, a model to be replicated by other villages and as the future of green energy. However, for some years now, Dharnai is like any other village fully dependent on thermal grid power.
"Our village Dharnai is no longer a solar village, and the government could not care less," a village resident Arun Kumar Yadav told The Federal.
Arun further said Dharnai’s solar village project was not successful since officials neglected it. ”Look, doors and windows of a once solar power plant are open to the world since there is nothing left inside. Children play inside, villagers keep cattle there and some youths use it as a place to drink and smoke at night," shared Arun Kumar.
The only remnants of the solar village are the rooftop solar panels on the defunct solar micro-grid office, which are visible 100 metres away from the nearby four-lane Patna-Gaya highway. But when one gets closer, the rooms inside the office are deserted.
Kalawati Devi, another villager pointed out that the solar village was only on paper because initially only few houses were connected to the solar grid for electricity. "Most of the households were never connected to it in the first place when it launched with much fanfare. And, later it was left to collapse due to poor maintenance.
'Solar village is history'
Kalawai, who works at an anganwadi centre, located behind the former solar station said, ”Solar power project samapt ho gaya. Kutch bhi nahi hai” (The solar micro-grid power station ended, nothing exists here anymore).
Bachchu Sharma, a village farmer said that hardly two to three years after it came into existence this solar village office turned into a non-operational showpiece. Sharma recalled that when it was started villagers were upbeat because the village did not have electricity earlier.
"Solar power grid brought hope and ended years of darkness. It ushered in a welcome transformation as several houses and streets lit up. Farmers were using solar pumps to irrigate their farmlands. But the joy was short-lived because after a few months solar batteries weakened and died. No attempt was made to revive it and the power station has been shut since 2019. Solar village is history here," said Sharma bitterly.
He noted that it was, however, a great move towards adopting green energy. But now, the villagers are happy using electricity from a thermal power grid.
Green model that failed
Dharnai was developed as a solar village in collaboration with Greenpeace India, a non-profit environmental organisation, which funded the project with support from CEED (Centre for Environment and Energy Development) and BASIX (a livelihood promotional institute). This solar station was setup at an estimated cost of nearly ₹3 crore.
An environment activist, who was formerly associated with Greenpeace said that it was unfortunate that the government neglected it and hardly came forward to revive it.
”Dharnai as a solar village could have become a model as it was designed for that purpose. It was meant to motivate and encourage villages across the state to adopt solar power in place of the thermal grid. But it sadly failed," said the activist, who preferred to be anonymous.
Solar energy promises
Dharnai is part of the SC reserve constituency. In the earlier assembly elections, the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had won this seat. This time, the RJD denied a ticket to its sitting MLA Satish Das and made Subedar Das, a former MLA, the RJD candidate for this constituency.
When The Federal met RJD candidate Subedar Das on his campaign trail and asked about Dharnai solar village, he replied that it does not exist anymore but he will pursue its revival it if he wins the polls.
A senior official at the Bihar Renewable Energy Development Agency (BREDA) in Patna refused to comment on the defunct solar micro-grid at Dharnai solar village citing the ongoing elections as a reason. ”We can only talk about it after the polls," he said.
Nitish Kumar, who is JD(U)'s star campaigner, on the last day of election campaign for the first phase polls, brought up the topic of solar energy. While seeking votes for his party's senior-most leader and Bihar energy minister Bijyender Prasad Yadav, who is standing from Supaul assembly constituency, a JD(U) stronghold, Nitish Kumar asked him to install rooftop solar panels free of cost at all houses after the party returns to power.
Nitish's push for solar energy
There is no doubt that the Nitish Kumar-led government had in the recent years actively pursued initiatives to promote renewable energy, especially solar energy.
After Nitish Kumar announced 125 units free electricity to 1.67 crore domestic consumers in July this year, he revealed that solar power plants will be installed on their rooftops or at nearby public places to provide benefits. Under the Kutir Jyoti scheme, for extremely poor families, the state government will bear the entire cost of installing solar power plants, and for the rest, the government will provide appropriate support.
Villagers in Dharnai and neighbouring villages are happy about the free electricity and praised Nitish Kumar for it.
Long way for Bihar
The state government led by Nitish Kumar had targeted to reach 23 GW by 2030, as per the latest renewable energy policy announced this year. However, this seems to be a big challenge.
This is because, according to official data, Bihar’s installed renewable energy capacity is 539 MW, which comes mostly from smaller projects.
The state’s installed solar capacity stands at only 328.3 MW, making it one of the least solarised big states in India, whose cumulative solar installations have surpassed 116 GW.
