Bhubaneswar, Aug. 13: Solar City, a Centre-funded project that aims to reduce at least 10 per cent of the city’s conventional energy demand by using mainly solar energy, is yet to be implemented as its final master plan is still being prepared.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) had signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives for preparing the project’s master plan on August 17 last year. The project is supposed for be funded by the Union ministry of new and renewable energy.

A BMC official said a draft master plan had been already provided to the corporation. “We have already received the draft plan for the project. Very soon, we will convene a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss salient features of the plan and subsequently prepare a final master plan,” said the environment officer of BMC, Bikram Keshari Routray.

Officials of the Odisha Renewable Energy Development Agency, the nodal authority of the project, said that they had also received a copy of the draft master plan. “Once the final plan is ready, it will be sent to the ministry for approval and release of money,” said the agency’s commissioner-cum-chief executive Anirudha Rout.

As many as 2,000 households and 2,000 commercial establishments along with industrial areas under the jurisdiction of BMC were surveyed for preparing the master plan. The plan will include a detailed analysis of the city’s energy requirements.

Sources in the agency said photovoltaic cells had already been installed at the state secretariat. Though a similar solar cell had been installed at the corporation office, it now lies defunct. The solar water heater, solar refrigerator and solar lights installed at the Municipal Hospital also do not function properly now.

The project holds significance because recently, the Centre had come down heavily on the state government for poor implementation of the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, which makes use of a solar heating system mandatory for buildings in all states.

Though the Union ministry of urban development had, in April 1999, asked all states to amend building bylaws for mandatory use of solar water heating systems in “functional” buildings, the order is yet to be implemented. Sources said the Centre had served several reminders to the state government for its implementation.

The Centre has also asked the state governments to furnish the details of municipal corporations that had amended the bylaws. The compliance report would be presented at a national workshop on solar water heaters scheduled to take place on August 23 in New Delhi.

“We will abide by the Centre’s directive. We have already initiated steps to amend the building bylaw and the process is likely to be completed soon,” said director of town planning P.K. Patnaik.