Thursday, February 15, 2007

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Its been a long time since I felt for any cause after I left college. Dealing with work pressures, adjusting to life in Bombay and a general indoctrination into hi-fi fundas of commercialisation, I had almost forgotten my socialist leanings of the past two years. Time to unleash them!!

Maharashtra as on today is facing a major power crisis. The deficit has risen to 5700 MW without any respite in sight. The only generation that is in sight is too less and some time away. The infamous Dabhol project which is now called RGPPL is still some way off.

The only viable alternative is load shedding; which, though hated by all is something which is unavioidable in a power deficit country like India.

Moving on, if you read the article, you will find one small line saying "Mumbai metro region has been excluded from power cuts"

Why are the rural regions and outer suburbs of Bombay like Kalyan, Dombivili etc facing massive power cuts while the main city stays chilled out to the max possible extent?

People in other places of Maharashtra also pay the same electricity charges as the citizens of Bombay. It certainly is not fair to screw others just to make Mumbaikars happy. It is a typical case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

True, there are essential services like railways which one cannot afford to shut down. But there are less critical sectors which can take ONE hour of load shedding a day giving allowance for emergency backup for elevators, alarm bells etc!!!

It would be a shame if people complain about a small amount of load shedding which would help the state. There are people who are suffering worse!!!

No comments: