Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani here today announced through videoconferencing an assistance scheme to encourage use of battery-operated two-wheelers and three-wheelers in the state to check air pollution.

Gujarat Government will provide subsidy of Rs.12,000 to school students studying in Standard-9 to colleges, with a target of 10,000 such vehicles. Similarly, a subsidy of Rs.48,000 will be given for three-wheeler e-rickshaw for individual and institutional beneficiaries, with a target of 5,000.

Announcing the scheme as part of five development projects, ‘Panchsheel’ Gift, to celebrate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday today, Rupani also announced Rs.50 lakh scheme for charging e-vehicles for creating necessary infrastructure. It was on this day, 11 years ago the then Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi had set up the country’s first a separate Climate Change Department, long before the climate change appeared as a challenge before the world.

He said that Gujarat is marching ahead with green energy as clean energy. Blessed with round-the-year sunshine, the state has established unique lead in solar energy, being Number One in the country in rooftop energy, generating low-cost electricity helping household sell the surplus power to the grid. The state has created 510 megawatt capacity1.38-lakh housing units through subsidy during the last three years. Current year’s allocation is Rs.912-crore for 2-lakh housing units.

Rupani said Gujarat leads in renewable sources of energy too, its share being 30 percent per cent in the state’s total 35,000 megawatt established capacity. This feat has helped the state save one crore tonne of coal and check 2-lakh tonne carbon-dioxide emission into the air.

The Chief Minister released a compendium prepared by the State Climate Change Department and dedicated to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, titled ‘Building a Climate Resilience Gujarat – A Decade of Climate Action and Road-map For The Future’ on the occasion.

As many as 10 virtual MoUs were signed with 10 institutions today in presence of the Chief Minister to celebrate 10 years movement by the Climate Change Department with Bhaskaracharya Insttitute of Space Application and Geo Informatics to reduce the effects of climate change and increase the use of recycled energy in presence of the department’s Principal Secretary S. J. Haider.

Other MoUs were signed with Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad for climate change risk management of mitigation climate finance and climate policy; one MoU with Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar for capacity building of climate change and environment, research and scientific knowledge; one MoU with Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation and Gujarat Gas for increasing the use of clean fuel; and one MoU with Chief Town Planner for preparing building code to save energy.

One MoU was signed between the Gujarat Council of Science & Technology and the Community Science Center for creating public awareness about climate change. One MoU was signed between Gujarat Livelihood Promotion Company and Sakhi Mandalis for solid waste disposal management and start projects to create livelihood in the field. One MoU was signed with Anand Agriculture University to generate bio-gas from gobar gas and to invent technology to generate renewable energy from farm produce wastes; one MoU with Gujarat State Biotechnology Mission for research for use of biotechnology in arresting climate change; and one MoU with Knowledge Consortium under the Education Department for incorporating more knowledge in the syllabus of higher studies.