Moving in the direction of self-reliance, Telangana’s Mukra K village in Adilabad district is showing the way. Instead of waiting for funds from the Government it has found means to generate funds and also pay a part of its electricity bills.

The village has the singular distinction of being the first village in the State to generate power on its own. For this the Gram Panchayat purchased two solar panels recently and have integrated it with the State grid.

Talking to the media, Gadge Meenakshi, the village Sarpanch said the solar panels were bought for Rs.4 lakh. These generate power which are used for street lamps, water plant, Anganwadi centre and the village panchayat building, thus enabling the village to save Rs.10,000 every month.

The panels are able to generate 6 kilowatts of power of which only 4 KW is utilised to supply electricity for the village street lamps and public buildings. The remaining 2 KW is supplied to the State grid which fetches the Gram Panchayat Rs.5,000 every month.

Funding the solar panels

What is remarkable about the GP is that it raised money to buy the solar panels by selling vermicompost that was created with garbage generated in the village. A bag of 50 kilograms of vermicompost is sold for Rs.1,000. The village from December 2020 to October 2022 made a profit of Rs. 7 lakhs by selling the vermicompost generated from dry waste.

In April this year, the GP of this village was recognised for its efforts and awarded the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Shashaktikaran Purashkar — a national award for effectively implementing various schemes.

The village’s efforts to keep their area green has also been praised by the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav.