Indian technocrat wins Green Oscar

Wednesday, 11 June 2003, 19:30 IST
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KOLKATA: An Indian technocrat is among six international energy activists chosen for this year's Green Oscar, a coveted global award for popularising renewable energy resources. Instituted by the London-based Ashden Trust in collaboration with the British government, the Green Oscar has among this year's winners Shantipada Gon Chowdhury, who is being awarded for his innovative idea on solar power conservation. Gon Chowdhury, who entered the contest for the award six months ago with his paper "optimum utilisation of photo-voltaic power plant", will receive the honour on June 18 from the British energy and environment minister. All the winners will be feted the next day at a reception by Queen Elizabeth at the Buckingham Palace's Queen's House. "The Ashden Trust was seeking applications and I decided to apply with my proposal on pre-paid metering of solar power connection," Gon Chowdhury, the managing director of the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Authority (WBREDA), told IANS here Wednesday. WBREDA has provided solar power connections to 50,000 households in the ecologically fragile belt of the Sunderbans, the world's largest delta and mangrove forest. Gon Chowdhury suggested in his paper that pre-paid meters, much like pre-paid telephone cards, could replace the present system of metering that was vulnerable to pilferage and wastage. "A pre-paid metering system will discourage not only wastage but also tampering with the meter. Every household can then use the surplus power to run water pumps with an intelligent special controller," he said. Ashden Trust officials short-listed 26 papers from about 150 applications and got in touch with Gon Chowdhury. "In April some trust officials came down to interview me. But before that they had checked out WBREDA's projects in the Sunderbans," said Gon Chowdhury, who leaves for London Saturday. He will have to appear for a final interview in London on June 16. "This interview is to decide how much should be the award money for each of the winners, all of whom in any case are Green Oscar winners." Gon Chowdhury, who won a gold medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1988 and received the Surya Puraskar award in 1999, will use his share of the award money in a WBREDA project.
Source: IANS
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