Awareness to save energy is key to survival of the human race on planet Earth. With this vision, Professor Chetan Singh Solanki, IIT Bombay, popularly known as Solar Gandhi of India, started a public movement “Energy Swaraj Yatra”. The yatra, which began in November 2020 from Mumbai, is designed to create a public movement towards 100% adoption of solar energy. The ‘solar bus’ reached Bhubaneswar after covering across eleven states. Prof. Solanki’s ‘mobile home’ is well equipped with 3.2 kW solar panels and 6 kWh of battery storage. It also has a 3 KVA inverter. The bus runs on diesel, but all lights, cooler, cookstove, and other appliances inside it are solar-powered.
As a part of this Yatra, a seminar was organized by School of Mechanical Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be University on 1st June 2022, to deliver the ideas by Professor Solanki on “Energy, Climate Change and I”. He was welcomed by Dr. Saranjit Singh, Pro-VC, KIIT-DU, Dr. Bharat Chandra Routara, Dean, SME and Dr. Isham Panigrahi Program Head, Automobile Engineering.
Prof. Solanki enlightened the perspective of growth and prosperity at the cost of declining health of Planet Earth. Prof. He advocated a three-step approach for switching fully to solar energy — “avoid, minimize, generate’. This involved avoiding use of energy as much as possible even if it is solar energy, or at least minimizing its use through resorting to efficient appliances, and generating energy locally.
Prof. Routara, Dr. Panigrahi, other faculty members, staff and students visited the solar bus, in which Prof. Solanki has been living and travelling for the past two years. He wishes to continue this journey till 2030. The program was coordinated by Dr. Bijaya Bijeta Nayak, Dr. Sasmita Sahu and Prof. Smaranika Nayak.