And God said, “Let there be light…”

A couple of years ago while working for a major PR firm in the city of Mumbai (note that I am specifying the city), we had one our numerous year on in-house training sessions where we were imparted trainings to hone our PR skills. While in most cases, the sessions were fruitful and worthy and helped us develop our skills for the better, at times however, it was sheer boredom to go through the same nitty gritties that you otherwise learn through practical approach. Anyways, that's another side of the story.

To come back to the point, during one such training session, our in-house instructor gave us an exercise for the next to-be-concluded session that was a week away: to come up with a PR solution to sensitize the people of Mumbai on saving electricity and reduce the shortfalls that the city and the state at large faced.

Now why should I recall this particular exercise of all the things and that which happened a couple of years ago? Well these days, a lot of have been seen, heard, read on TV, radio and the newspapers about Reliance Energy's inflated electricity bills and the after effects of it, the violent agitations outside its office at Santacruz by the common man as well as the political powers that be, the MERC's involvement etc etc etc. So? Yeah so??

Well I recall that while creating the powerpoint presentation on the power issue, I did a bit of research and found that Maharashtra faced a huge power shortfall each year. In other words the demand for electricity was much more then the state could supply and this had triggered the first ever riot, a one of its kind in Amravati and a couple of other places in Maharashtra a few years ago. Power deficit! So? Yeah so?

Well the research also pointed out the fact that even in the urban city of Mumbai, a lot of people were not conscious of the fact that in their day-to-day life, they wasted a lot of electricity, either knowingly or unknowingly thus adding to the woes of power starved city and the state.

One of the ideas that I came up to sensitize the people to save power was to increase the power tariff which I guess Reliance Energy seems to be doing nowadays. Well increasing the power tariff had its pros and cons which Reliance Energy aptly learnt the hard ways. But Reliance Energy should be happy with the fact that one section of the society had accepted the notion of the increased power tariff and were ready to pay more rather than go in for a power savings mode and thereby bring the inflated bills down!  Well my research also threw this fact up. There goes the 'Save Energy' motto !!!

So coming back to the core reason for this blog ' electricity and its use specially in a place like Mumbai which can afford to pay for the power consumptions. Did I say electricity and its use? I guess I missed out mentioning electricity and its misuse as well. Well misuse and the rampant theft of power all over the city.

Power theft and in a place like Mumbai? Now isn't that a bit hard to digest. Okay lets lay bare a few facts.

Recently we had a few festivals in the city and across the state and the country where everyone actively participated in the celebrations.  There was Ganesh Chaturthi, followed by Ramadan, then the Navratri followed by Diwali and soon its going to be Christmas with it just around the corner. So what's with all these festivities? Well for one whether its Ganesh Chaturthi or Ramadin or Navratri or Christmas, a lot of pandals are set up, streets are decorated with decorative lights, huge lamps put up. Now obviously nobody is supplying the power from their own house. And obviously not everyone could or would arrange for power generators. So where do these mandap decorators or the mandal members get their power from? Your guess is as good as mine.

I live in a slum area and have witnessed this trend for a long time. But then this is seasonal and happens only when the festivals arrive. There is another source of power loss and that is through the huge power theft happening in the city. To cut down on hefty power bills, lot of people are opting for illegal power supply as the secondary source for power consumption. Most of these pockets of slums have power sharks that provide these connections for a fixed sum every month. And it's a pity that most of the power sharks are in cahoots with the Reliance Energy officials (in areas supplied by Reliance Energy) who visit the place for inspections.

So who is to be blamed for the shortfalls that the state face so very often? Is it us common people who opt the easy way out? Is it the power sharks that provide these connections, is it the religious festivities that force for elaborate decorations, is it the company officials who turn a blind eye to it?                      

Reliance Energy on its part should revamp its hotline complaint number. Most of the time its unmanned and if someone gets through, the complaints are noted down but not acted upon for reasons best known to the company.

But then I am equally to be blamed because even I am using illegal source of electricity. But then do I really care? Do I really have a choice? Do I really have a legal electric connection in the rented shanty of a house that I live in nowadays? Well no, but then God said, "let there be light " whether legally or illegally, that's another question altogether.

p.s. Tata Power can interchange their name with Reliance Energy in this blog J