The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a financial help of $2 million (Rs 14 crore) to Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA) for establishment of Pirul based power and bio mass units in Uttarakhand. The project has also been sanctioned by the screening committee of Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), ministry of finance of Government of India.

The secretary Power, Radhika Jha who played a key role in doing the spadework for approval of the project said that a proposal of Rs 14 Crore was put before the ADB for employment generation from pine needles, reducing forest fires, creation of women self help group (SHG), the training of women SHG for collection and storage of Pirul, setting up of Pirul based projects with the help of Van- Panchayats and their capacity development. She said that under the Pirul Policy-2018, a total of 38 projects have been allotted to entrepreneurs in two stages. Out of them four projects are in last stages of establishment.

 Pine trees occupy a space of 4 lakh hectares of land in the state and cover 16.36 percent of total forest area of Uttarakhand.  Experts opine that the state has a total power production potential of over 150 MW from available pine needles and other biomass.

Industrial use of Pirul is one of the pet projects of Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. Apart from power generation from Pirul, the objective of the state Government is to create employment opportunities in the mountainous areas of the State.