SELCO to provide solar powered lightings two lakh houses

Udupi, Sept 14 (UNI) In an ambitious plan, the SELCO solar light private limited, will provide solar lighting and cooking systems to two lakh houses in economically backward areas in Karnataka by 2010.

Dr Harish Hande, the Managing Director of SELCO told UNI at Banglegudde, a remote hamlet between Aroor-Kurudunje in Kunjal Gram panchayat of Udupi taluk, that the company had already provided 65,000 solar lighting systems in Karnataka.

During the current year, with financial assistance from two public sector banks - Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank, the company was focussing its attention to provide lighting system to economically poor and rural population besides urban population mainly in Southern Karnataka, he added.

Later, he inaugurated the "Green Light" project to unelectrified, poor households in Banglegudde.

Dr Hande said the solar light system today launched in Banglegudde was totally free to the families who were unable to pay the electricity bills and lived with kerosene lamps.

The project was entirely sponsored by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), deemed University of Manipal, Manipal institute of Technology(MIT) and Kunjal panchayat. The project would be extended to other economically backward remote villages in a phased manner, he added.

Dr Radhakrishna S Aithal, Professor at MIT would conduct a progress study of the these families after providing free solar lighting periodically which was financially assisted by Mr Suresh H Shaw managing director of Asian Electronics Limited, Nasik. The project would be extended to other economically backward remote villages in a phased manner, he added.

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