Karnataka's solar policy plans to enable farmers to produce and sell electricity

Centre has lauded Karnataka’s solar energy policy and expressed a desire to include some of its provisions into their policy, a state Minister recently said.

“Our solar policy has been appreciated by the central government and it has urged other states to emulate it. The Centre has also expressed its desire to incorporate some of the provisions into their policy,” state Energy Minister D K Shivakumar said.

The minister said that the government has decided to produce as much as 9,500 MW solar power by giving farmers a chance to produce the alternate energy after installing solar plants.

The state government had last year cleared the solar energy policy, which encourages farmers to set up small solar power plants in their farms to produce energy and sell it to electricity supply companies, Shivakumar said.

Shivakumar said the government would appoint 16,948 junior linesmen in three phases. IIM-Bangalore has been entrusted with the appointment process and as many as 28,615 applications have been received by the department, Shivakumar said. The applicants would take an online test on June 16, he said, adding that appointments would be purely on merit.

According to PTI, Karnataka was not facing any problems in the power front as there was 10 per cent more water storage in reservoirs across the state, the minister said. Since the MET department has predicted below normal rainfall, officials have been directed to make arrangements for purchasing energy from different states, he said.

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