Power Minister M.M. Mani said here on Tuesday that the State, short on its own power generation and constrained to fully utilise its hydel sources, planned to generate 1,000 MW of solar power using public buildings including schools and college, dam reservoirs, irrigation canals as well as fallow land.
The State produces about 100 MW of solar power now, of which about 50 MW is in Kasaragod. It had also potential for generating wind power in Idukki and Palakkad, the Minister said. The State also had the potential to produce about 350 MW of power from small hydel projects and planned to exploit these sources. At the same time, there were big hurdles to establishing big hydroelectric projects including the Athirappilly project. The Minister was inaugurating a seminar here on safety in the electricity sector, organised by the KSEB Workers’ Association, CITU. The Union government’s policies on electricity brought up new challenges before States, the Minister said. He said that safety continued to be a major problem in the electricity sector and congratulated the organisers of the seminar.
President of the KSEB Workers’ Association Elamaram Karim presided at the inauguration of the seminar. State secretary of the CITU K.N. Gopinath welcomed the gathering. General secretary of the KSEB Workers’ Association K. Jayaprakash made a presentation on safety in the electricity sector and issues involved.
Power outages
Participating in another event, Mr. Mani chaired a meeting which decided to resolve complaints related to power failure in several places following the summer rain.
The meet decided to monitor the progress of the work under the guidance of Deputy Chief Engineers concerned. An official release issued here said that maintenance work should be carried out in places, where its required, before the monsoon. Mr. Mani urged officials to purchase equipment, whatever necessary, as part of the pre-monsoon maintenance work at various places.
Control rooms will be set up at the level of the office of the Chief Engineer to monitor the work aimed at resolving sudden power failures in the State.
