How solar is helping transform healthcare in Arunachal

“Earlier, patients had to be carried on bamboo stretchers to distant health facilities because our village sub-centre had no reliable power and communication was difficult...today, solar power has transformed that reality. We can sterilise instruments, treat wounds and injuries safely at the sub-centre, and offer timely care right here in the village, bringing healthcare closer to the people who need it most.”

Jimmy Nilling, ANM, Health and Wellness Centre, Bath, Papum Pare District, Arunachal Pradesh

In Arunachal Pradesh’s remote villages, unreliable electricity often disrupts routine healthcare delivery and limits health workers’ ability to respond to emergencies or provide care after sunset. This changed with the installation of a solar energy system under the Energy for Health (E4H) initiative.

Jimmy Nilling’s experience reflects the transformative impact of reliable energy access. By powering essential services closer to communities, the initiative has reduced dependence on distant health facilities and strengthened the capacity of frontline health workers to deliver timely, quality care where it is needed most.

Nestled in India’s easternmost frontier, the picturesque state of Arunachal Pradesh is known as the “Land of the Rising Sun,” where the day’s first rays illuminate the Himalayan landscape. The state is home to nearly 13.84 lakh people, living across remote and dispersed settlements.

Difficult terrain, limited connectivity, and climate-sensitive landscapes make access to essential services, including healthcare, highly challenging. Climate change has intensified vulnerabilities through frequent landslides, flash floods, heavy rainfall, and power disruptions, further isolating communities and affecting essential services, underscoring the need for climate-resilient healthcare infrastructure.

SELCO Foundation (SF), in partnership with the Department of Health, Arunachal Pradesh, and local stakeholders, is strengthening healthcare infrastructure through Decentralised Renewable Energy (DRE) solutions.

Launched in 2023, E4H is SELCO Foundation’s flagship initiative to strengthen public healthcare through reliable, decentralised clean energy.

Implemented with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), National Health Missions across states and local partners, the programme aims to deploy 100 MW of solar energy systems across 25,000 public healthcare facilities in 12 states by 2026, ensuring uninterrupted healthcare services at the last mile.  

Learning from the challenges that Arunachal Pradesh had previously experienced with solar installations, long-term reliability and operations and maintenance (O&M) were made a cornerstone of the programme from the outset.

SF adapted system designs to minimise maintenance requirements suitable for the challenging terrain.

A formal partnership was established with the state government in March 2025, and since then, the partnership has supported the solarisation of 393 health facilities across 28 districts, including 305 Sub-Centres (SCs) and 88 Primary Health Centres (PHCs), representing approximately 68.7 % of all the primary health facilities in the state.

How Remote Monitoring is Strengthening Healthcare Delivery

To ensure the investments in energy systems continue to deliver long-term benefits for health facilities, a comprehensive Operations and Maintenance framework has been established.

This combines Remote Monitoring Systems (RMS) at the health facility, the Saura e-Mitra Digital Incident Management Platform, and a CRM-based support mechanism. Together, these systems enable health workers to report issues, track service requests, receive real-time updates, and access timely technical support, minimising downtime and ensuring uninterrupted healthcare delivery.

The RMS consists of data loggers that can track the amount of electricity generated by the solar panel, the energy consumed, and the health and performance of batteries, inverters and ancillary systems. The Saura e-Mitra platform serves as the backbone of this maintenance ecosystem.

Through a phone-based app, it allows facility staff to log issues when medical equipment cannot be run, or the energy system is non-functional. This raises a ticket to the local energy enterprise responsible for maintenance and allows health staff to monitor ticket status and coordinate with support teams to resolve the issue.

The CRM-based system provides a centralised backend for ticket management, tracking issue resolution, and monitoring maintenance performance across facilities. Combined with centralised dashboards and SMS-based alerts, the platform improves accountability, communication, and data-driven decision-making across all 393 solarised health facilities.

This O&M mechanism is also being integrated with state health systems to ensure long-term ownership and management of assets by the Government. As the model matures, core O&M dashboards and monitoring tools will be integrated into government systems, enabling state authorities to oversee asset performance and maintenance through existing digital platforms.

To ensure the long-term sustainability of solarised health facilities, SF conducts O&M trainings for health centre staff. These trainings equip frontline healthcare workers with the knowledge and skills to operate, maintain, and monitor solar systems effectively.

By strengthening local capacity, the initiative promotes local ownership and understanding as well, helping health staff navigate systems more easily and ensuring government health systems can integrate the solar energy infrastructure as part of running the health facility itself.

So far, more than 80% of facilities solarised have been equipped with RMS, allowing tracking and issue resolutions. Over the last 1 year since October 2025, data from these systems suggest that nearly 80% of all energy use across 300+ facilities is powered by solar energy.

These O&M measures have helped in identifying challenges remotely and correcting issues early on, reducing disruptions and bringing financial savings on energy bills for these facilities. A notable example is UPHC Itafort, where RMS data revealed that, despite having a functional solar installation, a substantial portion of the facility’s electricity demand continued to be met through the grid.

Further analysis identified underlying system configuration issues that were limiting solar energy utilisation. Following corrective action, the facility was able to meet 100% of its electricity demand through solar power.

RMS also enabled the service team to accurately diagnose the issue remotely, allowing it to be resolved in a single site visit and avoiding delays, additional visits, and higher maintenance costs.

In another case from the remote and inaccessible region of Vijaynagar in Changlang district, where grid connectivity is unavailable, solar energy serves as the sole source of power for the Primary Health Centre (PHC).

Despite challenging terrain and connectivity constraints, the RMS provides visibility into system performance and energy usage. This significantly reduces maintenance costs by enabling remote diagnosis of faults and system performance issues, minimising the need for technicians to travel to the site simply to identify problems.

Reaching Vijaynagar itself is a major logistical undertaking. The nearest town, Miao, is approximately 157 km away via a difficult route, and the journey can take an entire day by road under favourable conditions, with travel frequently affected by weather, landslides, and poor connectivity.

Without remote monitoring, health facilities often have to bear the costs of multiple field visits for fault identification, spare-part procurement, and repairs.

Together, these examples illustrate how RMS is not only helping monitor infrastructure at scale but also enabling proactive maintenance, reducing operational expenses, bringing savings on energy expenses, and building long-term sustainability across Arunachal Pradesh’s growing network of solarised health facilities.

The Energy for Health initiative benefits extend beyond health facilities themselves. Reduced dependence on distant health centres has lowered travel time and out-of-pocket expenses for patients, while reliable infrastructure has improved the productivity and wellbeing of frontline healthcare workers.

Health facilities are also experiencing lower operational costs due to reduced reliance on conventional energy sources. At the same time, the transition to solar energy is reducing dependence on fossil fuels and lowering carbon emissions, contributing to climate resilience and the creation of more sustainable healthcare systems across Arunachal Pradesh.

From remote village centres like the Health and Wellness centre in Bath to off-grid facilities such as PHC Vijaynagar, reliable power is reducing barriers to care and bringing essential health services closer to those who need them most.

As Jimmy Nilling’s experience illustrates, what was once a journey of hours to access basic treatment can now often be addressed within the community itself, ensuring that primary health facilities are able to function efficiently and optimally.

The author is a consultant with Selco Foundation.

Also Read: Explained: Why are Mizo-Chakma relations under strain?