West Bengal may figure at the bottom among bigger States as far as generation of solar power is concerned, but a 176-year-old mosque in south Kolkata is showing the way.
Over the past few years, when the power bills of the Tipu Sultan Shahi Mosque in Tollygunge area of the city began to sky-rocket, the trustee of the mosque desperately looked for ways to cut costs.
Other than the beautiful green domes which are visible from Anwar Shah Road, one of the main arterial roads of south Kolkata, the mosque, in its 18-bigha campus, has a number of other structures on which the trustee decided to install solar panels.
‘First in Bengal’
“The cost of installing the panels came to about ₹15 lakh. But when the power bills began rising to ₹70,000-80,000 a month we thought it made economic sense to instal the panels,” said Shahzada Anwar Ali Shah, the trustee of Prince Ghulam Mohammad Trust, which runs the mosque.
Mr. Ali claimed that the mosque is the first in West Bengal to install solar power panels and the electricity generated by these panels goes into the grid of Calcutta Electricity Supply Corporation, thereby reducing the amount of electricity used by the mosque.
“Soon after the installation of solar panels a few months ago, our power bills dropped to ₹15,000 a month and in future we are going to install more panels and bring the electricity bill to zero,” Mr. Ali said.
Clean energy
Mohd. Saquid Anwar, the imam of the mosque, who ensures that the panels work properly, said that soon the mosque will have air-conditioning. He said that among the many reasons behind the initiative was to give out a message that people should switch to “clean and renewable energy”.
West Bengal Power Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay lauded the efforts of the mosque and said that this would set an example for other institutions. “So far in West Bengal we have generated only 52 MW of solar power. Though our target was to generate 200 MW by March 2018, the department will be able to meet that by the end of 2019,” he said.
The Minister said that for meeting the target the department was roping in 2,000 government-aided schools, which would instal rooftop solar panels and connect the electricity generated by them to the grid.
