Thannganing Hungyo
Dimapur | June 26
GREENPEACE INDIA’S ‘Ban the Bulb’ campaign has found support in Nagaland with the Government saying that it encourages “such innovative ideas.” MLA and parliamentary secretary for power, Y Doshehe Sema, who was in a meeting with the chief engineer of the department today, said: “We have to create awareness on such technology.”
Harping on the need to catch up with technology, he said, “Certain mistakes have been systematized in the past.”
Greenpeace India launched a nation-wide campaign in April seeking the gradual phasing out of inefficient incandescent or yellow bulbs by 2010, and instead, replacing them with more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).
The environment group is seeking a million signatures through a petition posted on the internet. The petition, which asks for a total ban on incandescent light bulbs by the end of the decade, is addressed to Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
“We want to get a million petitions signed,” Ruchira Talukdar of Greenpeace India Communications said from Delhi. She pressed on the need for more efficient lighting which can come about through a political will that sanctions more production of CFLs as incandescent bulbs are gradually phased out.
India, whose greatest threat to environment today is climate change, can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4% if CFLs are introduced. Greenpeace wants light bulbs with efficiency less than 25 lumen/watt to be phased out.
India uses 18,000 mega watts of electricity for lighting everyday, most of which is wasted by usage of inefficient ordinary bulbs.
One would have to dish out around Rs 300 for a thousand hours of yellow light bulbs. For the same life-span, CFLs would cost Rs 75. Energy savings during peak hours can also reduce power shortage.
To make compact fluorescent lamps affordable to the poor, electric utilities and governments need to subsidize rates of the same. Australia and Canada have already committed to phasing out incandescent lamps by 2010 and 2012 respectively.
Morung Express News
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