BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation will soon come out with guidelines on minimising energy consumption in the city, which is fast expanding.

"We are looking to launch public awareness drive and adopt new regulation regime with an aim to bring down energy consumption in civic body infrastructures," Vice-Chairman of Bhubaneswar Development Authority Arun Panda said on sidelines of a seminar here on Friday.

Mr Panda said the fast target would be big malls and conference halls where energy consumption was more. "We will place energy consumption device or sensors at major locations to constantly remind operators about the status of energy consumption. The users will be encouraged to adopt renewable energy being generated through solar, wind and solid waste management," he said.

The system would be replicated in all other urban local bodies, Mr Panda, who is also special secretary in Urban Development Department, said.

The electricity consumption in the city has been fluctuating between 430 million units and 500 mu since 2001. The BMC spent Rs 2.7 crore towards electricity consumption in 2005-2006 as against previous year's Rs 2.6 crore.

Switching system

The corporation had consumed 17,263 litre of petrol 306157 litre of diesel in 2004-2005 and spent nearly Rs 1 crores on this account.

"We have started using power savers to reduce our hefty electric bill.

We have already decided to procure design-based streetlights and are contemplating for placing computerised switching system to bring down level of energy consumption," Mayor Mihir Mohanty said.

The mayor said the corporation would soon impress upon the builders and architects to introduce concept of tapping green energy and low consumption measures in their plan.

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