Ambitious plant inaugurated by CM just days ago can’t function at full capacity, as 28 trees are blocking some of the panels; activists have protested their hacking, saying govt should have planned things better
It has been just three days since Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated the solar power project at Raj Bhavan here, touted as a government effort to promote eco-friendly measures. Ironically, however, the plant has since been unable to produce electricity at full capacity — all because the authorities concerned have been unable to fell trees blocking the solar panels at the spot for a year now, thanks to the efforts of green activists.
The solar power project was launched by the government at the Raj Bhavans in Pune, Nagpur and Mumbai, under which a one megawatt capacity plant was also installed here. Through 3,500 solar panels, the plant is meant to produce 15 lakh units of electricity per year. It was aimed that along with the Raj Bhavan, electricity produced would also be supplied to other places based on requirement. All these plans, however, have seemingly come to naught thanks to a not-so-naturefriendly glitch in this alternative energy project, as 28 trees blocking their panels continue to flourish in the area.
An official at Raj Bhavan, preferring to stay unnamed, told Mirror, “Eight of the panels were already damaged when some branches fell. Further to this, we applied for permission to fell around 28 trees last year, when work for the project began. But, environmentalists opposed it, so civic officials did not give us the permit. Now that electricity production has started, capacity is getting hampered — normally, if there is shadow on even one panel, the entire row stops working. Almost 20 such rows are unable to function at a time throughout the day. This has brought down the production capacity by 20 per cent. We have raised requests again, but the authorities are not replying.”
While these officials are blaming environmentalists and activists, the latter claim the officials are clearly the ones flouting norms. Said Vaishali Patkar, president of the Aundh Vikas Mandal, “The rules clearly state that solar panels should be installed on rooftops. If enough space is not available, it can be moved elsewhere. But here, despite plenty of space being available, they have chosen to build the panels on an area that supports dense forest. Trees have already been damaged due to this project, and they now wish to hack more trees. How on earth can this be an environment-friendly move?”
Added environmentalist Vinod Jain, “Under the pretext of development, the government is damaging the environment indiscriminately. Be it the Pune Metro, ring road, or any other project, no one cares about nature. Now, they are shouting from the rooftops that this project is eco-friendly, but they still want to cut trees for it. There are ways to ensure that such projects do not damage the environment further — they never explored these ways.”
However, these efforts of the treehuggers may not bear fruit. Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) tree officer Dayanand Ghadge told Mirror, “We want to process this request from Raj Bhavan fast. There is opposition from environmentalists, who have submitted it to us in writing. But, this application doesn’t mention this particular tree-felling project. So, we will ensure that this the project gets back on track as soon as possible.”
Article Source: Pune Mirror