CIAL will double solar power capacity by February, CM Pinarayi Vijayan tells AGM
KOCHI: Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said that the installation capacity of the solar power plant of Cochin international airport will be doubled by February 2017. The Chief Minister who is also the chairman of CIAL said that performances of all verticals and plans for CIAL diversification will be boosted. He said this while addressing the 22nd annual general meeting (AGM) of the shareholders here. The CIAL chairman also said that the new international terminal will become operational within two months.
The AGM ratified the director board's all recommendations including the doubling of the solar power generation capacity. It also approved giving 25 % dividend to 18,000 shareholders for the financial year 2015-16 taking the total dividend since 2003-04 to 178 %. With the commissioning of the 12 MWp (mega watt peak) solar power plant last year, which is installed near the cargo premises, CIAL had become the first airport in the world to be fully powered by solar energy.
Currently solar power generation has been increased to 15.4 MWp by the installation of more photo voltaic panels. So far, the total installations have produced 23.5 million units of power. "Following the huge success of experimenting with alternate energy sources, the company has now decided to produce 1.15 million units of power a day by doubling the solar power capacity," the Chief Minister said.
Mr.Pinarayi Vijayan said the company has shown stupendous performance during 2015-16 fiscal. It logged a net profit of Rs 175.22 crore, with a turnover of Rs 524.53 crore. When compared to the previous fiscal, the rate of growth of profit was 21.12 per cent and that of turnover was 26.71 per cent. The airport has handled 7.77 million passengers during the last financial year.
The company has also devised a master plan for land utilization with the help of Ernst-Young. The construction of 1931 meter four lane road including two flyovers will be completed by next month, he said. Mr.V.J. Kurian, CIAL MD, welcomed the gatehring. Minister V.S. Sunil Kumar, and director board members M.A.Yusuffali, N.V. George, E.M. Babu and C.V .Jacob and company secretary Sunil Chacko participated.
