In the recent Assembly
elections in Rajasthan, Congress was drubbed – BJP won absolute majority
securing 162 seats as against 21 of Congress
~ in the outgoing Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's home district
Jodhpur, BJP has won nine out of ten assembly constituencies, with Gehlot the
only winning candidate of the Congress party.
Sure we know -
Thomas Alva Edison (1847 – 1931) a great
inventor who changed the lives of people with his electric bulb and more
including the phonograph, the motion picture camera. Edison is the fourth most
prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as
many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. More significant than
the number of Edison's patents, are the impacts of his inventions, because
Edison not only invented things, his inventions established major new
industries world-wide, notably, electric light and power utilities,sound
recording and motion pictures.
After passage of decades now it
is stated that the incandescent light bulb is not very innovative. It hasn't
changed much since Thomas Edison introduced it in 1879. Even today, it still
generates light by heating a tungsten filament until it reaches 4,172 degrees
Fahrenheit (2,300 degrees Celsius) and glows white-hot. Unfortunately, all of
that white light is not very green. A good deal of electricity -- electricity
from coal-fired powered plants responsible for spewing greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere -- is required to make an incandescent bulb burn brightly ~ and
now its existence is being threatened by compact fluorescent light bulb, or
CFL, as
its illumination comes by way of a much different mechanism. Instead of
a glowing filament, CFLs contain argon and mercury vapor housed within a
spiral-shaped tube.
A compact
fluorescent lamp (CFL), is a fluorescent
lamp that uses one-fifth to one-third the electric power,
and last eight to fifteen times longer. A CFL has a higher purchase price than
an incandescent lamp, but can save over five times its purchase price in
electricity costs over the lamp's lifetime.L ike all fluorescent lamps, CFLs contain
mercury, a neurotoxin especially dangerous to children and pregnant women,[3]
which complicates their disposal. In many countries, governments have
established recycling schemes for CFLs and glass generally.
Here in Tamil Nadu, CM Jayalalithaa launched the first phase of providing free
compact fluorescent light bulbs to over 14 lakh hut-dwellers in the state, an
energy-saving measure aimed at saving 40 mw of power. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa also launched over
Rs. 500 crore worth of projects under the Energy Department through video
conferencing from her camp office at Kodanadu in the Nilgiris district. The
scheme of providing free CFL bulbs was launched with an objective of promoting
power-saving, a state government release here said. In the first phase of the
Rs. 8.77 crore project launched on Monday, Ms. Jayalalithaa gave away one
nine-watt CFL bulb to seven persons each marking its roll out, the release
said, adding the initiative will help the government save about 40 mw. A total
of 14.62 lakh domestic consumers coming under the hut-dwellers category will
benefit with seven lakh of them being covered under the first phase, it said.
But elsewhere……… Rajasthan's
new chief minister Ms Raje finds the state in a mess with six million abandoned
bulbs ordered by last government to help woo voters ~ all have the face of
Gehlot on the box… !! Daily Mail reports
that though his performance has been wiped out in the Assembly polls, perhaps
the light has not gone out yet. The
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been left wondering what to do with
around six million compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs worth Rs 66 crore,
which were purchased by the former Congress government, led by Ashok Gehlot,
for free distribution among the below poverty line (BPL) families and those
living in hamlets and shanty dwellings.
Giving the bulbs is ticklish as all of the covers carry the face of
former CM and former power minister - Jitendra Singh.
In his budget speech, Gehlot
had announced the distribution of two CFL bulbs each to BPL families and those
living in hamlets at a budgeted cost of about Rs 100 crore. Consequently, 12.5
million CFLs at the rate of Rs 107 per bulb were purchased for Rs 133.75 crore.
The distribution work was supposed to be over before the Assembly elections. It
has now emerged that around six million CFL bulbs - about half of the total
purchased - couldn't be distributed, despite the fact that anybody who produced
an electricity bill was given the CFLs, even in urban areas including the state
capital Jaipur. As the scheme was meant
to win over the electorate in favour of the ruling Congress party, the
suppliers were asked to print photographs of Gehlot and his power minister on
the packages.
Besides the CFL, more than
55000 laptops were given to students; these, tabs, bicycles and more did not
turn the tide in his favour though ~ now so many bulbs are not providing any
light !!!!
with regards – S. Sampathkumar
30th Dec 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment