Bhubaneswar: Taking a step towards designing innovative approaches in governance, state government has decided to collaborate with the world famous University of Chicago (India Centre) to gain advance technology on energy efficiency and pollution control.
An expert group from the university made a presentation on collaboration before chief secretary AP Padhi, development commissioner R Balakrishnan, energy secretary RK Varma and other senior officials at the secretariat here Wednesday.
“The state government is working on pollution control and energy saving measures for some years. We would like to have an independent study of approaches adopted so far by the state and bring in international practices for making those more effective,” Padhi said.
“We have had an engagement with the University for Orissa Knowledge Hub (OKH) programmes. We are holding preliminary talks with the University’s India Centre. The state will like to gain from their knowledge and expertise on monitoring of pollution control and improving energy efficiency in the state.”
In the long run, the government will also look forward to collaborate with the University for capacity-building training on specific areas to the state officers to ensure international exposure.
Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC) country director Anant Sudarshan said their objective is to bring economic research to the forefront of solving energy and environment challenges.
Presently EPIC is working with the centre and some others states in reducing electric theft, increasing energy efficiency, emissions trading to control industrial air pollution, water quality monitoring, exploring new decentralised opportunities, crop burning, electricity reform, access to electricity and its distribution etc, he said.
Stating the state has taken a number of steps for pollution monitoring and accessing renewable energy, he said, “EPIC would like to have collaboration with the state government and State Pollution Control Board to bring qualitative as well as quantitative improvement in these initiatives,”
The team will hold further discussions with the energy department, GRIDCO and pollution control board to identify specific areas for collaboration.
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