Sun smiles on a cold desert

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-250214.html



Sun smiles on a cold desert
By Athar Parvaiz
Feb 25, '14

LEH, India - Surendar Mohan, a catering assistant at the residential school Jawahar Navodiya Vidyalya, looks thankfully up at the sun from this cold high-altitude desert in northwest India.

"Now things have become quite easy for our workers," he tells IPS. "Earlier, we had to use a lot of dishes for cooking rice, pulses and vegetables, but now the big solar dishes have made our job much easier." A five-dish solar steam cooking system can cook for up to 600 persons at a time. The region is now witnessing a significant spread of a solar energy network.

"Apart from reducing the workload, cooking in solar dishes also improves the quality of food," he says. The solar cooking system can cook as much as 150 kilograms of rice, 100 kilograms of vegetables and 30 kilograms of pulses at a time. More than 570 students and staff have their meals here.

"It is not only very easy to operate, but it provides us (with) hot water for washing the dishes in the cold season," says Tashi, one of the kitchen staff.

[Nihil]

1. K&R for a welcome drop of good news! (n/t)