Energy Conservation Corps in Schools

Hyderabad, March 19 (INN): Taking the cue from Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu over energy conservation, AP State Energy Conservation Mission proposed Energy Conservation Corps (ECC) on the lines of National Cadet Corps (NCC) in all the schools and colleges to promote energy conservation as well protection of natural resources which are essential for future generation, said AP Chief Secretary and chairman of State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM) IYR Krishna Rao.

According to him, the Chief Minister observed that students can play a pivotal role in energy saving which is essential to meet the growing electricity demand to some extent and protect the natural resources such as coal, natural gas etc. apart from reducing burden of electricity bills on consumers. The proposed ECCs would help in achieving the desired goals of energy conservation as students will play proactive role and minimize electricity consumption and make others to conserve energy at optimum level which will immensely benefit the society.

The Chief Secretary who chaired the Executive Committee meeting of SECM society, a State Designated Agency for energy efficiency activities has sought ideas from various experts and teachers' community for involving students for the promotion of energy conservation.

He said the students would become role models with the constitution of ECCs at schools and other educational institutions. 'Chief Minister could give impetus to bring LED revolution which has become a bench mark at the nation level for the promotion of energy conservation. The Govt. distributed around 40 lakh LED bulbs to 20 lakh households so far in Guntur, Anantapur and Srikakulam. The project aimed to distribute 2 crore LED bulbs to one crore families by March, 2016 in the remaining 10 districts. Now, the Chief Ministers also desired to sustain the momentum by involving entire student community at all levels for the energy conservation without compromising on the regular studies,' said Krishna Rao. 'For the first time, the government has included energy conservation as one of the chapters in 8th,9th and 10th classes. So, the students would also know the link between energy conservation and economic development of the State as well as the Nation'.

The Chief Secretary has discussed at length about the energy conservation initiatives with executive committee members including AP Energy, Investments and Infrastructure Secretary Ajay Jain, Former Joint Secretary-Energy (Government of India) Anil Kumar Kutty, Transco/Genco CMD K.Vijayanand, Energy Additional Secretary Rahul Pandey, CMDS of DISCOMS HY Dora and R.Mutyalaraju, NREDCAP Managing Director M.Kamalakarbabu and SECM, CEO A.Chandrasekhar Reddy.

Ajay Jain said that there had been tremendous response over the positive impact with LED bulbs' distribution in piloted districts. He has also added that the consumers had expressed happiness with the reduction of electricity bills after installation of LED bulbs in the respective districts. He said a detailed report was sought from SECM and DISCOMS over the variation between power consumption and electricity bills before and after the LED revolution.