Chandigarh’s bicycle project catches parliamentary panel’s fancy

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Chandigarh, February 15

The UT Administration got a pat on the back from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs on its work on projects such as public bicycle sharing, EV policy and conservation of heritage.

“Members of the committee asked UT officials to share their experiences and practices with other union territories. They also sought more details on how the public bicycle-sharing concept has been implemented in the city and how it is progressing it terms of people’s response,” said a UT official, who attended the meeting.

The official said the committee was also informed about the plan of the UT Administration to make Chandigarh carbon neutral by 2030 and to achieve 75 MW of solar power by August 15, 2023.

To make the city more cycle-friendly, the committee was told that the UT Administration would also upgrade the existing cycle tracks. The official said the cycle tracks would be upgraded, potholes repaired and lighting installed at dark spots on the tracks.

On solar generation, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had enhanced the solar power generation target of the city from 69 MW, to be achieved by 2022, to 75 MW, to be met by August 15, 2023. Till date, the UT has achieved a generation of around 47 MW.

In order to produce green energy, the Standing Finance Committee had recently approved two major proposals of the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science and Technology Promotion Society (CREST) for a cumulative capacity of 2.8 MWp. Of this, one project is for installation of 2 MWp floating power plant at raw water tanks of waterworks in Sector 39, Chandigarh, which will generate 28 million units of electricity. This project will also help in reduction in evaporation of up to 382 million litres of water annually and will also generate more power than other solar projects due to cooling effect of water.

An 800 kWp solar power plant will be installed at the Sector 42 lake parking. Both these projects willsave approximately 8 acres of valuable land of Chandigarh. CREST will soon set up a 500 kW floating solar energy plant at the Dhanas lake.