Anantapur: The district authorities have proposed to install solar panels at all mandal offices and social welfare hostels to overcome the severe shortage of electricity.

Anantapur: The groundwater table has plummeted alarmingly in Anantapur district due to scanty rainfall and excess extraction of water. The government has banned the drilling of new borewells in 271 villages keeping in view the poor groundwater levels.

The groundwater department has found that 50 per cent of existing borewells have dried up. On an average 70 per cent of the new borewells have failed in the district. Exploitation of groundwater is widespread in 19 mandals.

With the increased contamination of drinking water affecting the health of rural people, the government has initiated steps to test the quality of water at all the villages.

Though the task was gigantic to check quality of water with limited number of employees from various departments concerned, the government is using the services of Asha volunteers and Anganwadi workers of respective areas to check quality of water supplied to the rural people. As part of providing quality water, the Rural Water Supply(RWS)) department is conducting training programmes to the Asha volunteers and Anganwadi workers over testing drinking water samples.

Andhra Pradesh objects to Karnataka constructing the Paragodu barrage on a tributary of the Krishna river, but Karnataka denies violating any inter-State water-sharing agreement.

Hyderabad: Monsoon-dependent groundwater levels in the state have fallen by more than 11 metres in 2012. In 1988, the fall was a mere five metres and in 1998, it fell by seven metres.

Interestingly all this happened despite normal average rainfall in the past two decades. Sharing the aforementioned with this newspaper, Dr K. Venugopal, joint director of the AP Ground-water Department said that what is more alarming is that perennial resource of groundwater in the state is not only declining but has started drying up.

Jamshedpur: Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL), the sole domestic nuclear fuel provider to the country’s indigenously built nuclear reactors, is poised to start a giant uranium mining-cum-processing project in Kanampalle.

The company is already on the verge of completing its 3,000-tpd mine-cum-processing plant at Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh. To be taken up on full completion of the Tummalapalle expansion project, the neighbouring Kanampalle project is slated to be a “very, very big” project of around 6,000 tpd, three times the size of its largest and most modern 2,000-tpd Narwapahar mine.

With no rain or dust, November was one of the better months for solar power plants in the country

The ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) recently released data of power generation from solar plants constructed under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) for November. And the results span from very good to dismal. November means short days for the solar plants, but according to Vineet Mittal, managing director of Welspun Energy, a solar power developer: “November is one of the better months with no rain or dust and with lower temperatures, closer to the conditions they are made for, increasing output from the cells.”

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to cancel the 8,848 acres of land allotted to the Lepakshi Knowledge Hub (LKH), which had proposed to set up a multi-sector industrial park project in Anantapur district bordering Karnataka.

“Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has directed the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) to initiate action for the cancellation process with regard to allotment of land to Lepakhshi for violation of terms of memorandum of understanding,” the chief minister's office said.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered iron ore mining in six leases in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district to be stopped due to a pending inter-state border survey.

The court’s forest bench, which is hearing cases on illegal mining, said mining operations and transportation of ore from the six leases should be suspended till further orders.