PWD finds Secretariat ‘unfriendly’ for solar energy

The state Secretariat is located inside St George Fort and is functioning from two buildings, one is the main two storey building that houses the office of Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Ministers, Election Commission and some of the important departments, including Home, Public, Revenue and so on.

Another Secretariat building present inside the Fort complex is the 11 storeyed Namakkal Kavingar Maligai which is the power centre of the Secretariat. The building houses the office of all Secretaries in which more than 6,000 staff attached to 32 departments work.

Recently, the state government has announced slew of eco-friendly measures in the state, including banning single use plastics and promoting solar energy in a vigorous manner. In the newly launched Solar Policy of 2019, state has envisioned to add 6,800 megawatt of solar energy, to the existing 2,200 MW, in four years. 

The state also announced that soon all the government offices will start generating solar energy for their own use by installing roof top solar panels. The slew of announcements was welcomed by environment activists, but so far there is no visible progress as the Secretariat, from which all important orders are passed, is still not eco-friendly.

According to sources in the Secretariat, government planned to install a mega roof top solar panel to generate electricity on top of the Secretariat main building few years back, but the scheme did not kickstart. Later the officials thought of setting up solar panels on top of Namakkal Kavingar Maligai building, but there was no progress in that too.

Environmental activist feel that the government should at the earliest go for setting up solar panels at the Secretariat. Independent Environment Researcher Kripa Ramachandran told DT Next, “When more than 6,000 staff work in Secretariat there would be huge amount of energy required and if solar panels are setup great quantity of conventional energy can be saved which will ultimately result in improving environment.” However, the government officials said that the project of setting up solar panels in Secretariat is not feasible.

“When Public Works Department (PWD) officials were asked to prepare feasibility report for setting up solar panels in Namakkal Kavingar Maligai building, the PWD officials submitted that as the building is more than 30 years old, setting up solar panels is not feasible. 

However, we have insisted them to see if there is any other place in Secretariat feasible for setting up solar panels,” said a top official attached to Public Department, on request of anonymity.