The parched brown of the land in Charanka village in north-west Gujarat, around 50 km from India’s border with Pakistan, seemed endless. In peak summer, during one of the worst droughts to hit the region in 30 years, it seems devoid of all life–even doughty bush plants have lost most leaves. Cyclone Vayu, that hit the Gujarat coast in June 2019, did little to revive the district of Patan.
This perhaps explains why the official website of the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited describes the 5,384 acres across which the Charanka solar park is spread as “unused” land. A project map available at the park’s office differs from this assessment–of the 5,417 acres, close to 2,000 acres are under cultivation, it showed. The rest, as per the map, is “government land”.
