Such a criminal waste of resource.

It is a well-known fact that India produces much less electricity than what is needed.
In short, demand outstrips supply by a big margin. This means that there are many
places in India which are yet to get electricity.

Even in cities, the consumption is increasing rapidly and production is not able to keep
pace. While increasing production requires huge investment, what is easier is to avoid
wastage of the same. Just like a penny earned is a penny saved, every unit of electricity
saved is a unit produced.

Like with any other resource, I am very careful when using electricity. While it is tough
to control wastage in our home at Kerala, because it needs an attitudinal change in my
parent's approach, I manage to do a neat job at my home in Chennai. And it was not that
tough to inculcate the discipline in my wife too and she too avoids wastage. When I am
alone at Chennai, at any given point of time, there won't be lights burning in more than
one room.

Not only is this inline with my personal principle of avoiding resource wastage, especially
non-replenishable ones, it also helps one save money on their electricity bill. My normal
bi-monthly bill is around 50bucks (during peak summer it comes to like 200 or so, when
I use the airconditioner at night).

Ofcourse, I am not in Chennai during the weekends and on weekdays also I spend just
about 8-9 hours at home. But still this low figure is possible only due to prudent usage.
Why have the tubelight switched on in the living room, when I'm in my bedroom reading
a book ?

Electricity boards in Kerala and Tamilnadu exhort consumers to avoid wastage of precious
electricity and to switch off any light or fan that is not required. Nice advice, but I would
prefer they lead by example instead of preaching. The following picture was taken by me
on my phone-cam last Saturday morning from the train. The place is near Chengannur
railway station.


Check out the circle that I added to the pic. It is the streetlight, which is burning away to
glory at around 9:30AM in the morning, in broad daylight. Before you think that this is
something that happens only in Kerala, I have seen whole city roads illuminated by street
lights at 10AM in the morning at Chennai. Imagine the power being wasted, which could
instead have been put to better use in a situation where it was needed.