Feature Article

Other states may follow suit as cash-strapped state discoms find the going difficult. Odisha government has asked the Centre for a subsidy to purchase solar power, saying it is too costly. The move makes Odisha the first state in the country to openly express its inability to purchase costly renewable energy. The state may not be the last one to demand aid—cash strapped state discoms are increasingly finding it difficult to purchase renewable energy.

But the country lacks a tidal energy policy. The Gujarat government is all set to develop India’s first tidal energy plant. The state government has approved Rs 25 crore for setting up the 50 MW plant at the Gulf of Kutch. It will produce energy from the ocean tides. The state government signed a MoU with Atlantis Resource Corporation last year to develop the plant. “The proposal was approved in this year’s budget session,” says Rajkumar Raisinghani, senior executive with Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL).

Book: The politics of climate change and the global crisis: mortgaging our future, by Praful Bidwai, Orient Blackswan, Rs 750.

Solar mission mandate to promote domestic crystalline silicon technology fails to achieve desired result. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is planning to create a fund to help entrepreneurs who are setting up domestically engineered solar power plants in the country. Many project developers feel the pinch while buying solar equipment from domestic manufacturers because cheaper Chinese and US solar panels are available in the market.

It is one year since the great eastern Japan earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster ravaged Japan. How is the country coping? Shriya Mohan travels to Tokyo and Fukushima to find out. My first impression of Japan, after landing at the Haneda international airport in the wee hours of the morning, was the sight of hundreds of people wearing white masks that stretched from ear to ear, walking briskly past me. It triggered a question: “radiation?”.

Okhla residents accuse BJP and Congress of trying to poison people by promoting waste incineration to generate electricity. The plant is being put through trial runs. Even as candidates contesting municipal seats in the national capital make their rounds of residential colonies to seek votes, citizens and waste-pickers' associations are angered by the election manifesto of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). One of the promises it makes is electricity from waste by setting up incineration plants in various parts of the city.

The companies missed the last deadline of March 9 to commission solar power plants under national solar mission. The bank guarantees of three companies, commissioned to install solar power plants under the national solar mission have been encashed. The companies failed to commission the power plants on time. The last date of commissioning was March 9.