Hyderabad
June 28: The government’s plan to set up solar water heaters in high-rises have run into rough weather with builders evading the rule. Apparently, no punitive action is being taken to check the practice since the government has been collecting 25 per cent of the cost of the equipment from the builders to issue a no objection certificate (NOC).
“The state government had made it must for all five-storey buildings to install solar water heaters way back in 2005. But no one seems to bother whether the order is implemented or not,” an official of the Non-Conventional Energy Development Corporation (NCEDC) said. Five-storey buildings need to deposit 25 per cent of the installation cost of solar water heater to obtain an NOC. So far only a few hundred residential apartments in 15 districts have installed solar water heaters.
Most builders are yet to fall in line. The NCEDC could only succeed in having an installed capacity of 27 lakh litres of hot water through solar heaters. For domestic water heating purposes in apartments, a 100-litre capacity solar water heating panel costs between Rs 14,000 and Rs 15,000.
A government order to disconnect power supply if residential buildings fail to install solar water heaters is already in vogue in Karnataka. If implemented in the state, it can help solve the power crisis in AP, Mr Sudhakar Reddy, the chief general manager (operations) of the AP Central Power Distribution Company Limited, said."
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