A group of social, environmental and human rights activists, led by V.R. Krishna Iyer, has urged the Kerala Government to formulate a ‘people’s solar energy policy’ in view of the declining power availability and rising power bill in the State.
The activists – who included Sugatha Kumari, Sara Joseph, M. Geethanandan, C.K. Janu and C.R. Neelakandan – pointed out that the UDF had an open-door policy for private players in the renewable energy field. This had helped a lot of sham entrepreneurs to float fraudulent businesses in solar energy. The recent political scam that involved the Chief Minister’s office was a spin-off of such policy.
The current power crisis called for exploring non-conventional energy avenues, especially solar and wind. But, the government was lukewarm to this and the government agency ANERT was not being empowered to do this. The Centre had offered to substantially support to set up 10,000 roof-top solar units with high subsidy, but the State has not taken steps for this.
The activists called for formulating a solar energy policy and launch programmes to make use of the non-conventional energy schemes.