Green energy is going to cover the new Collectorate complex here and visitors can get a proper shade to park their vehicles.
Officials themselves come together under an umbrella organisation called The Green Club Trust to undertake the work. With the task of maintaining the complex after its opening in June last, they joined together to find a way out. They came up with the idea of integrated management of affairs under the aegis of a service organisation outside government official structure but within the ambit of bureaucracy. Thus the Green Club Trust came into existence.
The organisation was launched with the objective of maintaining the entire collectorate complex and other divisional, taluk and other select premises green and clean, provide facilities for office employees in the Collectorate, follow e governance and reduce paper and waste, plant saplings and grow trees and maintain rainwater harvesting structures, among other things, according to its chairman, Board of Trustees and Collector N. Subbaiyan.
Around 29 heads of government department and agencies pooled their resources such as contingency fund and other annual maintenance fund to ensure that monthly payments are made as wages to those deployed for conservancy, maintenance, gardening and other activities in the Collectorate. Incidentally, workers were chosen from among the SHG members and their kin.
The trust wanted to address the increased demand for parking shelters and at the same time sought to reduce the power bill that was hovering around Rs. 1.50 lakh a month for the Collectorate. Thus came up the roof top solar facility with an installed capacity of 50 kW that is expected to significantly reduce the power bill. As no storage batteries are to be used, power will be generated and utilised only during day time and the efficiency is expected to be even 90 per cent, Dr. Subbaiyan explained. The shed measuring 3,350 square feet can accommodate 20 cars or 120 two-wheelers.
The whole solar roof top and shed facility cost Rs. 37 lakh and in a bid to supplement the resources of the trust, the district administration dovetailed funds from other suitable allocations for public cause. Two other chapters of the trust - at the Old Collectorate Museum and at the Thanjavur Maharajah Serfoji's Saraswati Mahal Library - have installed similar roof top solar facilities with a capacity of 5 kW and 20 kW respectively.
Besides, the trust has facilitated an EDP centre at the Collectorate which gives the public cheaper printing and photocopying of documents. There are ambitious plans to increase chapters to cover divisional and taluk public offices in Thanjavur district, Dr. Subbaiyan sid.
