The unprecedented rain and the resultant floods which pounded Chennai and suburbs recently has made authorities to take some innovative actions to face such eventualities head on in future. The heavy downpour and floods made the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) to switch off power supply which threw normal life out of gear. It is reported officially that nearly 50 people were electrocuted during the floods with 20 deaths coming from Chennai alone.
The entire metropolis went without power because of the rain and floods. This led to disruption of normal life. One of the causalities was the services rendered by the Department of Posts, which touches the lives of all people irrespective of caste, creed, religion and the economic strata to which they belong. Due to the power supply failure, distribution of postal articles came to a standstill. All other services rendered by the Department of Posts too came to a halt.
The Postal authorities were the first to take note of the situation and have launched an innovative mission all over Tamil Nadu to tap the solar energy to power the post offices in the time of natural disasters.
A release by the DoP said efforts are on for installation of Solar Power Packs in order to provide solar backup during power shutdown. “Solar power packs have been installed in some of the identified departmental buildings under Chennai City Region so that erratic power supply does not hamper the working and counter services in post offices,” said the release.
Solar packs with a capacity of 2KWp have been installed in three post offices on an experimental basis at a cost of `11 lakh. “All computer systems and peripherals of these three post offices have been connected with Solar Power Uninterrupted Power Supply system. These three post offices are capable of functioning exclusively on solar power,” said the release.