Hyderabad: The State Government would provide solar lamps free of cost to 10th class students to prepare for their examinations without any hiccups due to power cuts. This was stated by Minister for Power and Energy G. Jagadish Reddy in the Telangana Assembly while replying to a question of G. Balaraju and others regarding the hardships being faced by students appearing in examinations due to power cuts and frequent disruption in power supply.

Asserting that the government has taken all steps to ensure that there would be no power cuts, especially between 6 pm to 10 pm, so that the students can pursue their studies during examinations, the minister pointed out that the government was also considering as an alternative to provide solar lamps to the students.

Explaining in details about this scheme, Jagadish Reddy said that the state government was holding discussions with IIT Bombay which had agreed to supply these solar lamps. The Central subsidy for each solar lamp was Rs 180 and the rest Rs 120 should be borne by the students, he disclosed.

The minister later clarified that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in order avoid any burden on the students wanted that the Rs 120 would be borne by the government. Thus, the students would be provided with the solar lamps free of cost and added that discussions were going on for supply of four lakh solar lamps.In reply to supplementary to questions by members, the Minister assured that the state government would take steps to ensure that students in villages and remote places would also be provided with the solar lamps.

Source: THI