Don’t you think these land pockets would create a massive land conflict?We need to move from the traditional way of land acquisition to a land lease system based on installation capacity. The state can lease the land from farmers and sell this land to companies who set up solar plants. So, they pay farmers directly and regularly. Further, farmers can also provide their labour to solar farms. This will encourage farmers’ participation in energy development.Why did India’s solar rooftop programme fail to get significant traction?Yes, it has been a slower than expected start. It is a new scheme and will take some time. There are two biggest challenges: One is the lack of gradation of vendor service and another is power companies. For vendor gradation, the government needs to run a campaign among users to rate vendors’ experience so that new users can approach them directly for installation service.India’s solar sector is hampered by a shortage of skilled workers. How can the ISA help India to fill the gap?Imparting training to a large number of manpower is going to be India’s answer. The country has enough manpower for policy making as well as manpower for large companies. How about the village and city level where most of the action is taking place? The counrty needs to train people on a large scale. The ISA works on the crucials areas of capacity building where we impart training.How is ISA playing a role in mobilising finances required for solar projects in the upcoming COP29?The ISA has been the authoritative voice of solar in COP 29. We collaborate with government as well as private sector equivalent organizations such as the Global Solar Council, an association of various national solar energy agencies. We are looking at finance from both public and private sectors for our solar actions.We have adequate finance for commercial activity to invest in solar and other renewables. However, the vast amount, almost 85% of funds, goes to the OECD countries such as China, India and Brazil whereas the whole Africa continent gets only 3% despite Africa having 60% of the world’s solar radiation. The ISA is creating a guarantee mechanism for investment.
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