Ahmedabad/Vadodara/Surat: A taxi driver in Gujarat received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number two months ago that promised the unthinkable. An electricity bill of zero.
All that Bikhabhai Sanabhia Tadvi had to do was install a solar panel on the roof of his home in Vemardi village, outside Vadodara. He would then be part of India’s biggest residential rooftop solar breakthrough, taking place right here in his home state of Gujarat.
Tadvi, a driver from a Scheduled Tribe community, mulled it over. Installing a rooftop solar panel on his house would cost a steep Rs 1.35 lakh, and his bank wouldn’t offer him a loan. He already had dues against a house and a car loan to pay.
“I thought about it for some time, and realised I would make up the money in a few years’ time, so it was worth the investment,” Tadvi, wearing shades and a crisp white shirt, told ThePrint, standing outside his two-storey home.
Tadvi’s is one of four households planning to install solar panels in the village, but other neighbours, too, said they hoped to do so later. Vemardi has a population of around 1,200, and a literacy rate a little lower than Gujarat’s average of 78.03 per cent, according to the 2011 census.
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