Five airports in Jharkhand, including the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi, will soon be powered by solar energy, officials of Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (JREDA) said on Thursday, adding that the tender for this project has already been floated.

JREDA Director K.K. Verma said that each of the airports equipped with solar panels will produce 600 KiloWatt of power every day once the project is complete. Solar energy produced in these airports will not only light up the airport premises, but also provide power to some of the residential colonies close to the airports, another JREDA official said.

“The tender for this project has been floated and the last date for bidding is September 1. At least five airports in the state will be powered by solar energy under the project,” said Verma.

Besides Ranchi airport, airports in Dumka, Deoghar, Bokaro and Giridih will be covered under the project. While the Birsa Munda Airport is the only fully-operational airport in Jharkhand at present, some of the remaining four airports in the list are likely to start operations within a year, sources said.

JREDA officials said the government has allocated a fund of Rs 20 crore for the project with a target of completing the project in six months. The initiative was important for Jharkhand as most of the airports in the state were at a developing stage and incorporating eco-friendly changes at this stage would benefit in the longer run, an official at Ranchi airport said.

Birsa Munda Airport is also likely to undergo major expansion in the days to come and the use of renewable energy will be a boon, an official from the Ranchi airport said. The state government has approved the expansion plan of the Ranchi airport and signed an MoU with the AAI for a 330acre expansion project.

Currently, Ranchi airport has about 20 flights connecting the state to Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune and a few other cities.

Many airports in other parts of India have relied on solar energy in the past couple of years in an effort to ensure eco-friendly development. The Puducherry Airport in Tamil Nadu became the first completely solar-powered airport under the Airport Authority of India (AAI) back in 2020. Besides, the Cochin International Airport in Kerala, run in a public-private partnership mode, is claimed to be the first solar-powered airport in the world.