Officials feel heat over notices for installation of solar panels

Times News Network
Chandigarh: City residents expressed anger against issuance of notices to those who have not installed rooftop solar power panels at a meeting on PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. The estate office has issued notices to residents for not installing rooftop solar panels, which have been mandated under building byelaws.
The meeting on the power scheme was held in the municipal corporation, Sector 17 office in collaboration with Chandigarh Renewable Energy & Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST), the nodal agency for installation of rooftop solar power panels.
Those who attended the meeting included Crawfed chairman Hitesh Puri along with 25 members of the federation’s governing body and a Foswac team led by its chairman Baljinder Singh Bittu.
Bittu questioned how the administration had made installation of rooftop solar power plants mandatory. “Residents should be free to opt for rooftop solar power plants. It involves major financial costs, which many may not be able to afford. Such notices are only a scare tactic by the administration so that people opt for the recently launched central government scheme,” he said.
Crawfed members also opposed Chandigarh Administration’s move of making installation of solar panels on 10 marla houses and above compulsory. Hitesh Puri said that it could be mandated for newly constructed houses but not for the ones already constructed. He observed that such a rule would create problems for residents having limited income, people residing abroad and houses which have been sold floor-wise.
He requested the administration to allow construction of stairs to access the rooftop solar system.
Earlier, MP Manish Tewari posted on social media site, ‘X,’ “A substantial number of citizens of Chandigarh are very upset about the coercive notices to install Roof Top solar Plants or their properties would be resumed. They are not against renewables, but they are against coercion and they are right.”