Reducing Unemployment in India by Solar

The Times of India has reported that the Indian government is thinking of reducing unemployment amongst the highly educated youth population, by giving them an opportunity to build solar projects under the 100 GW solar plan. The government has recently announced that they will build 20,000 MW of solar parks in partnership with state governments. This initiative will allow the state governments to run the reverse auctions, in which they allocate large capacities to companies under a reverse auction scheme. Solar plants will be able to sell power to Electric sub-stations with free capacity as per the government plant. Unemployed youth with higher education degrees will be given preference. They could hold 26-49% of equity in partnership with companies.

Though the entire details are missing, I think this may be a stupid plan. The main reason is that how will unemployed youth bring in any equity in a company. These people are looking for jobs and maybe do not have the skill set to become entrepreneurs. They obviously do not have a lot of capital to put into highly capital intensive projects such as solar ones. A 1 MW solar power plant costs around Rs 7 crore, with a 10 MW plant being the minimum size to be allowed in a solar park.

I think if the ministry does not go through the details, it will become a breeding ground of corruption as companies put up dummy youth to win contracts. India is notorious for drivers and peons being directors of large companies as a front for their masters. I think a better way would be to provide them training in installing small scale rooftop projects, solar products and small village microgrids with funding provided at subsidized rates by government banks. This will help these youth to gain some skills and understanding of the solar market. It would be a more practical way rather than funding multi crore projects.