Port Blair, May 20: The Lt Governor had in a recent meeting at Raj Niwas reviewed the functioning and the programmes of the Department of Power. The Lt Governor was briefed by Secretary (Power), through a power point presentation, on the achievements of the Electricity Department during 2013-14. Important programmes undertaken in current financial year were also discussed.
The Lt Governor expressed his concern over the high cost of power generation through diesel based sets and directed the Department to conduct a special drive– “Energy Conservation Week” for creating awareness about energy conservation measures in Government Departments and the General Public.
Lt Governor has further directed that all Government Departments to curtail their energy consumption by 10% in their offices and this shall be monitored periodically. General Public is also advised to curtail their consumption by using energy efficient devices and avoid wastage of energy. All public lighting systems should be converted to energy efficient LED lights or Solar Street lights from now onwards. It was also decided that the Department shall review the prevailing tariff of Commercial/Industrial sector in view of the highly subsidized levels of tariff i.e. @ Rs. 4.00 per unit vis-a-vis Rs. 24.00 per unit being the cost of supply.
The Department informed Lt Governor on the efforts being made for implementation of projects for generation of power by renewable sources like Wind Energy, Solar Energy (through rooftop/solar power packs), Tidal and Oceanic Thermal Energy Conversion Technology. In the conventional power sector, the Department is already in the process of finalization of agreement for installation of LNG based power Plant through M/s Petronet LNG Ltd. The Department has already started the work of installation of 5 MW DG sets at Phoenix Bay Power House.
The Lt Governor has once again emphasized the need for working on reduction in the cost of generation as well as minimizing the power consumption in all sectors.
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