Solar cooking is revolutionizing life at one of India’s most celebrated temples at Shirdi, a holy destination in the western region of India. Solar cookers have replaced traditional polluting stoves, making it cheaper and greener for the temple to host hundreds of thousands of pilgrims daily.
In a remote village in South India, the solar lamp is lighting up thousands of autobiographies. Almost half of the country’s population lives without power. Deepak Gadhia of Gadhia Solar Energy Systems Pvt. Ltd. said, “We soon realized what India needed was appropriate technology, not high technology. The most satisfying projects are the ones we do in the villages, where we can convert the whole thing into a smoke free village. For those who cannot afford it, we have to social engineer so that they can pay from the profit and not from the pocket. India could change if we could have this technology in 500,000 villages in India.”
Siddharth Pathak, Greenpeace India said, “In India, you still have a long, long way to go for environment friendly technology innovation, but the potential is immense. We need to exploit that potential rather than waiting for the world to change and world technologies to come into India. I would say India can take on a leading role in developing solar or renewable technologies in the world.” India is known around the world as a burgeoning car market and CNN’s Eco Solutions takes a closer look at India’s homegrown brand that hopes its green technology can capitalize on this potential. Kapur finds out how an electric car company has big plans for more than one billion people in India and even bigger plans for the world.
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