Power Minister Ramkrishna Dhavalikar speaks in the Assembly.
Photo Credits: Narayan Pissurlenkar
PANAJI
Power Minister Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar on Thursday told the Goa legislative assembly that Goa's solar energy targets will be met with the proposal to install 'floating solar plants' in reservoirs of four dams -- Amthane, Anjunem, Chapoli and Selaulim -- in the near future with a combined capacity of 197 megawatts.
Dhavalikar who was replying to the discussion on the demands for grants pertaining to the Electricity and the New and Renewable Energy departments said the potential to harness 197 megawatts of solar power with floating solar plants at these four dams has been documented in a report received from a central government agency.
He said the State government will soon work on this proposal to bring it to fruition.
Earlier during the discussion, Opposition legislators had censured the power ministry for failing to make any tangible progress on Goa's targets to produce solar energy. The State's push to achieve targets set for itself for promoting rooftop solar plants among individual households had also been seriously questioned by MLAs in the Opposition.
Responding to the allegations, Dhavalikar said, the department had received 3,727 applications from individual households of which 3,400-odd had been processed and cleared for technical feasibility. He also said that 875 households had so far taken benefit of the subsidy scheme for rooftop solar installations and a total subsidy of Rs 13-odd crores had already been disbursed. The cumulative capacity of all these rooftop solar installations was 46.2 megawatts, he added.
Dhavalikar said the Department of New and Renewable Energy had been established in 2016 but to date did not have a proper staffing structure allocated to it and was being run parallel with personnel drawn from the Electricity Department.
He also said that the State's solar power policy was made in 2018 and amended in 2022. Now, GEDA is in the process of formulating a new solar energy policy for the State, a draft of which will be put out in the public domain very soon.
MLAs praise electricity dept for work in constituencies
Legislators across party lines had words of praise for Chief Electrical Engineer Stephen Fernandes and other engineers of the electricity department for work carried out in their respective constituencies to upgrade the transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Dhavalikar acknowledged the compliments and asserted that he would discuss with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant how to arrange for the Rs 50-60 crore that will be required in each constituency to complete the underground cabling of all 11KV and 33 KV High Tension transmission lines.
"We will first complete underground cabling of all high-tension lines before embarking on the same for low-tension lines. The LT underground cabling could cost a whopping Rs 30,000 to 40,000 crore and will not be possible as of now, except possibly a few areas of touristic importance and some other priority areas," Dhavalikar said.
On the question of power interruptions and voltage fluctuations, Dhavalikar said unless the department has solid data on actual power load of consumers will be very difficult to draw up plans for upgradation of transformers to ensure better quality power supply.
He also said that it will ensured that every division will be equipped with one lift crane-mounted vehicle and every sub-division has a ladder-mounted vehicle used to repair street lights.
Dhavalikar said the recovery of arrears as far as government departments are concerned is being carried out with book entries through the Finance department.
'Tamnar project essential for State'
Dhavalikar said the Tamnar project is very much needed for Goa with rising peak load demand and disputed Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao's assertion to the contrary.
He said Goa's power demand will cross the 1200 MW mark in the near future which can then be met with this Tamnar project. The Power Minister clarified his stance on the project, stating the opposition was only to the initial alignment proposed by the company.
"I objected only to the initial alignment which would have required cutting down several trees. I never opposed the Tamnar project," Dhavalikar said during the Assembly session.
Earlier Alemao and some other Opposition legislators had argued that the project which they said would harm the ecology of the State was unnecessary and the existing four inter-state transmission lines if upgraded could bring in up to 2000 megawatts of power to the State from the national grids.
