India To Roll out a Massive 7.5 GW Solar Plant in the Northern Buddhist Province

The Indian government is planning to build a huge 7500 MW solar park in the northern Buddhist province of Ladakh. The government had announced a plan to do that around three months ago but was facing challenges from the environmental perspective as this huge plant could affect the wildlife in the remote mountainous region. The power ministry has quickly picked up a new site of Pang in Ladakh which does not face any environment or social issue.

The other major problem is that of building a transmission line across the hilly region. This has also been sorted out by unbundling it from the solar project. The government had issued a tender which combined both the solar project as well as the transmission line construction, but now it is making these two pieces of infrastructure development as separate from each other.  India is not only rolling out this massive project for economic reasons and energy security but also for strategic reasons.

India recently changed the status of its Jammu and Kashmir state by dividing it into two union territories for Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These two UTs lie very strategically near the borders of China and Pakistan and India has major disputes with both countries on the status of these territories. It has already fought three wars with Pakistan and one war with China. The hilly region of Ladakh is remote and is economically underdeveloped. India with this solar park wants to grow the GDP of Ladakh and wants investments to flow into this region. It has a lot invested in the success of the Buddhist UT of Ladakh. This massive solar park will lead to an investment of almost $5 billion into the region with cascading positive effects on employment. It will also draw the people of this region closer to India and will prevent the neighboring countries from using poor youth to foment trouble in this region.