At the heart of every developmental milestone lies the power of the people. When technology that is clean, renewable, sustainable and affordable reaches the grassroots where it is most needed, the positive impact can be staggering. What makes it work is the ability of the locals to take up the responsibility, ownership and mobilization of using that technology to create change.

The project “Localization of Solar Energy through Local Assembly, Sale and Usage of 1 Million Solar Urja Lamps (SoUL)” aims to improve education through the localization of solar energy, where local villagers are trained to assemble, campaign, distribute and service the solar lamps. These solar lamps are sold exclusively to school children, which are used as a source of clean light. These lamps can be charged using sunlight during the day. Thus, when night falls in rural India, school children can use this clean source of light to study. No more will the lack of electricity be a cause for poor education. IIT Bombay, along with the Government of India’s National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) with the support of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) endeavours to change the lives of 1 million school children by distributing 1 million Solar Urja Lamps.