Kolkata: Alipore Police Station has become the city’s first police station to be green.
It has installed 10 solar panels with a capacity to produce 4.5kwh of electricity – enough to keep all lights, fans, TVs, computers, and other basic electrical equipment throughout the day at the police station and a barracks of a co-side.
Electricity from CESC is used only for higher electricity consumption gadgets such as air conditioners, heaters and geysers.
According to officials, Alipore police station has an average monthly bill around RS1.10lakh during last summer.
Overall Kolkata police spend around one crore to pay electricity bills for their 73 police stations every month.
It encouraged the police to think outside the box and they started the pilot project with the Alipore police station built at a cost of Rs 3.5 Lakh.
A senior police officer Kolkata said they planned to install this at all other police stations as well in the phase.
The police station maintains a daily database of the number of electricity produced and daily reduction in carbon dioxide.
“This is a small step towards a greener environment.
The electricity produced is enough to turn on all our basic electrical equipment.
We even produce the excess electricity that we provide for CESC which then adjusts it to our monthly bill,” said a senior police.