The Hindu                 30.05.2013

Coimbatore Corporation to do cost-benefit analysis for solar cookers

Coimbatore Corporation will soon do a cost-benefit analysis for the solar cookers it plans to install at the 16 higher secondary schools.

The civic body at its May 21 council meeting resolved to install solar cookers in the schools for preparing noon meal for students from Classes I to X.

It also resolved to spend an approximate Rs. 10 lakh for the purpose. It said that if the Corporation were to use the solar cookers it would bring down the use of liquefied petroleum gas cylinders and also the cost.

According to sources, the Corporation had estimated that it would have to spend around Rs. 5 lakh for the cookers after factoring in the subsidy, if any, from the Central and State Governments. This would do away the need for LPG cylinders at the 16 schools.

Once the use of the solar cookers was found to be beneficial, the civic body would extend it to the 77 centres, from where it served noon meal to over 8,700 students.

Though the Corporation had said that the solar cooker would help it bring down cost, the reality is that 50 of the 77 Corporation schools with facility to cook using LPG were not doing so.

The reason: cost.

Sources in the Corporation said that the State Government paid the Corporation 24 paise a child a day towards fuel. With this money it was impossible for the noon meal organisers to buy even firewood.

The money the Government sends the Corporation to be spent on a student taking noon meal was Rs. 1.30 and Rs. 1.70 for students in classes I to V and Rs. 1.40 and Rs. 1.80 for students in classes VI to X.

Of those, the Rs. 1.30 and Rs. 1.40 are on days when pulses are not used. And the other two are the expenditures on days when pulses are used.

The sources said that the Corporation could not save on firewood or fuel because that was a negligible amount, which did not reflect the reality. If at all, the solar cooker would make the lives of cooks easier in that they would be spared of the trouble of battling smoke and sitting for long in front of the stove.

The sources said that it easily took more than two hours for the noon meals cooks to prepare food for around 100 children. And then there was the preparatory work.

When for a short time the cooks were given LPG cylinders, they found the task easier. But they had to give up using LPG cylinders because the money allotted for fuel was insufficient.

A noon meal centre serving 100 children would require four to five cylinders a month and that too the cylinders would have to be bought at commercial rate. Whereas the Government’s 24-paisa-a-child-a-day worked out to a mere Rs. 480 a month.

The sources wanted the Corporation to bring in a system that would make the cooking easier.