Indians won two of the four prestigious Ashden Awards for sustainable energy, globally known as the 'Green Oscars', each carrying a cash prize of 30,000 pounds and a trophy, in London on Wednesday night.
Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College, Tilonia in Rajasthan, who provided lighting using solar panels in over 136 remote and virtually inaccessible Himalayan villages bagged the Ashden Award for Community Welfare, while S P Gon Chaudhuri, a leading specialist in renewable energy systems from West Bengal, was chosen for the Ashden Award for Enterprise.
Afworki Tesfazion of Eritrea who invented smokeless and fuel-efficient clay stoves, got the Award for Food Security and Moel Moelegan, who developed an innovative wind farm, received the Ashden Award for the UK.
Lord Whitty, UK Minister for Farming, Food and Sustainable Energy, presented the awards at the Darwin Centre of the Natural History Museum in the presence of a select gathering.
The winners were chosen from a shortlist of nine people drawn from a record number of entries from some 25 countries and four continents.
The awards, now in their third year, recognise and reward inspirational renewable energy projects, which provide social and economic benefits for their local communities and protect the environment, Jonathon Porritt, internationally renowned environmentalist and chair of the UK government's Sustainable Development Commission said.
After receiving the prize money and trophy, Roy told PTI he would utilise the cash prize for starting a Barefoot College for women in Ladakh.
As part of Roy's commitment to demystifying the technology of solar energy and demonstrating that poor communities can manage their own solar electrified villages without any technical help from outside, 90 men and 19 women -- many of them illiterate -- were trained as barefoot engineers to maintain the fixed units and solar lanterns provided.
The change that has taken place in the lives of over 15,000 people, now benefitting from solar energy, has been immense.
"No longer do they have to walk for two days to get a 20-litre jerrycan of kerosene that had to last one month," Roy said.
The work of Roy and the Barefoot College has created significant employment opportunities, facilitated night schooling in winter, enabled women to produce handicrafts at home, regenerated wasteland through the use of solar water pumps, and most importantly, ensured a growing collective confidence among the communities involved to look after their own solar electrified villages.
Stating that he was 'very happy' to receive the prestigious award, Gon Chaudhuri said he would utilise the entire prize money on electrification of Sunderbans in West Bengal.
Chaudhury, who is heading the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency, is famed for converting the Sagar Island into a solar island. The island receives more than one million pilgrims every year to visit the sacred sites.
The WBREDA, under Chaudhuri, provided the islanders with grid quality solar powered electricity. With support from the islanders, the Agency has also initiated a programme of village electrification using nine solar mini-grid systems. This project currently provides grid-quality power for more than 1,000 villagers for five to six hours daily.
It has also facilitated the villagers to have safe drinking water, health facilities and reduce snakebite cases.
The solar mini-grid system developed by him has been replicated in Zambia and Bangladesh, Chaudhuri, winner of the National Science Academy award, said.
Chaudhuri said he has also developed a pre-paid solar electricity card and it would be popularised with part of the prize money.
Ram Chandra Prasad, a dedicated environmentalist and activist, who heads of the Madhya Pradesh Gramin Vikas Mandal, was a losing finalist.
