Bangalore: The State government would extend the solar street light project to all parts of the State in the coming days, Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar said here on Monday.

Speaking at the inauguration of Solarcon India 2012, a solar energy event, being held at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), the chief minister said a large number of solar street lights and signals have already been installed within Bangalore and a few other cities.

Shettar also said the government was aiming to achieve the solar energy target of 200 MW by 2016. “It has been made mandatory for all new houses to install solar water heaters.

We have added 441 MW of renewable energy including wind and solar during 2011-12. In 2012-13, it has been proposed to set up a green energy fund by levying surcharge of five paise per unit on industrial and commercial consumers,” he said.

The event with the theme -“The promise of affordable solar power in India: Unraveling the bottlenecks and identifying solutions,”- has been organised by SEMI, a global industry association with the State Department of Industries and Commerce and allied wings.

The Minister for Large and Medium Industries Murugesh Nirani said the State government was planning to establish solar parks in Bijapur, Gulbarga and Yadgir districts.

“The cities of Mysore and Hubli-Dharwad are covered under model solar-city programmes and roof-top harvesting programmes are likely to be taken up in these cities under net-metering concept,” he said.

More than 100 companies have exhibited their products on solar energy at the exhibition space spread over 60,000 square feet and more than 5,000 visitors are expected to attend the event in the next two days. For details visit www.solarconindia.org-DH News