One million schoolkids around the world build and light solar lamps
In 2010, a family sending a child to school in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district would get a solar lamp from Chetan Solanki. The IIT-Bombay professor’s innovative way to promote both education and solar power use soon turned into a self-help initiative where students and their parents started making solar lamps. Now, 6.5 million children across the world have been trained in making a solar lamp.
On Wednesday, students attempted to make a Guinness World Record, with 1 million of them building and lighting up solar lamps all at once around the world. Solanki, a 44-year-old ardent Gandhian, went around the world to propagate his initiative. The programme has now been picked up by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and covered under the Centre’s skill development schemes.
