The world famous Mysore Palace, which attracts lakhs of visitors every year, has set up a novel system by which footsteps will help generate power to light up a majority of the bulbs there during Deepavali season.
Palace Board Deputy Director T S Subramanyam said 36 lakh people visited the palace a year, and about 7,000 people during the illumination time -between 7 pm and 8 pm - at the weekends.
This heavy footfall would be helpful in generating power.
He said waterproof power generating slabs in the form of tiles would be placed on the floor.
When someone stepped on these slabs, a small amount of power would be produced, and it would be enough to illuminate most of the bulbs in the palace during Deepavali considering the enormity of footfall, he added.
Pedalling for Power
Meanwhile, the district administration, in association with the Palace Board and a private telecom service provider, launched ‘Cycle to light up Mysore Palace’ programme here on Monday.
About 10 stationary cycles that are connected to a dynamo have been placed on the palace premises. When the visitors pedal these cycles it would generate some energy that will be stored in batteries. This power would be used to light up a portion of the palace during the Dasara festival. If all the 10 cycles are pedalled for 10 hours, about 1,500 watts of power is generated -- enough to illuminate about 1,000 bulbs for about an hour. o illuminate all bulbs in the palace, about 2,000 units of power is needed. From Tuesday, bulbs on a portion of the entrance gate would be lit up with this power. DC P S Vastrad said if the plan got a good response, efforts would be made to place more cycles on the palace premises.