There should be emphasis on greater use of renewable sources like rice husk, biomass and solar plates for generation of adequate electricity to meet the growing energy demand in Bihar, he said at a high-level meeting with the ministers and officials on exploring opportunities to tap power from renewable sources.
Kumar said that it was imperative to tap power from renewable sources to meet the growing demand as getting coal was becoming difficult.
There was difficulty in getting coal linkages for the proposed thermal power plants in the state and even the operational plants were finding it difficult to get adequate coal supply, kumar said adding that under the circumstances efforts should to generate power from renewable sources.
He asked the electricity department to work out an integrated model to reduce cost of power generation from renewable sources and also to carry out campaign at the village level so that people could use renewable sources to produce power for electrification and irrigation.
The Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACSs) should be motivated to generate power by using rice husk, Kumar said.
The cooperative officials made a presentation to the Chief Minister about power generation from the gasifier-cum-rice mills to drive home the point that there was abundant potential for power generation by using rice husk as the state has been a major producer of paddy.
Kumar also reviewed process of various power projects based on renewable sources.
He asked the officials to frame a policy to simultaneously promote fisheries and solar power generation in areas with water bodies.
