IMPHAL, June 18: The Manipur Renewable Energy Development Agency(Manireda), is all set to light up three district hospitals in the state besides 73 police stations and Manipur Rifles unites in the state with solar lighting systems.
The hospitals are Thoubal,Churachandpur and Moreh district hospitals. “The said three hospitals will be lighted with solar power plants (each having 25 Kilowatts)”,a senior official of Manireda here,said,“Hectic preparatory works are on in this regard.Similar facility will also be provided at the to the State Academy of Training at Lamphelpat.”
All the 73 police stations across the state would be having compound solar lighting systems while the Manipur Rifles and Indian Reserve battalion units would be having indoor lighting systems of renewable energy such as solar lighting systems.
After electrifying more than 200 remote villages in the hill districts with renewable energy sources, Manireda has started electrifying the police stations by tapping solar energy. The agency has also so far electrified 165 Gram Panchayats(village level local bodies),other small town committees and urban local bodies including Jiribam and Thoubal in the state by providing a total of 5736 solar street lighting sets having the capacity of 444 Kilowatts.
The agency had also install as many as 14 solar-wind hybrid power plants in various non-electrified remote villages of the state.All the plants except three have started to provide power supply to the needy villagers.
“Even the remaining three plants will be made operational by August this year”, the officer claimed.
“We’ve taken up such steps to somehow reduce the problems created by the shortage of proper power supply in Manipur”,the officer added. “I think we’ve been providing the total power supply of around 3 MW from the renewable energy sector.”
Manipur state’s power requirement is said to be around 170MW during the peak hours but the government is able to procure only 80MW which was comparatively equivalent to power consumed by 3 to 4 five star hotels in India’s metro cities.As a result the power department is able to provide only 4 to 5 hours’ power supply daily, as the state does not generate power.
But the installation of solar home lighting and solar lighting sets is being jointly taken up under a scheme between the Union Ministry of Renewable Energy Resource Development,Government of India and the State
Home Department. In the recent times,Manireda had also provided solar power plants at four important government sites in and around Imphal valley where the equipments of night landing facilities for aircrafts were installed.
