GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar has suggested that a real campaign be taken up in order to create awareness on “Earth Hour 2014 – Hyderabad unplug”.
The Commissioner held a meeting on Earth Hour 2014 along with Ajay Jain, Commissioner, Technical Education, Jayesh Ranjan, VC & MD and with all the representatives of concerned departments. The Commissioner opined that Earth Hour programme should not be conducted as a one hour programme but should be aimed to make people committed towards saving the energy sources.
Somesh Kumar said that as a part of Energy Conservation World Wide Fund (WWF), an NGO, who has been working for a noble case of “Protecting our Planet”, is organising a programme of “Earth Hour – 2014 with an objective to demonstrate action against climate change and initiate a mass movement towards more sustainable and healthy & efficient use of energy sources.
He further said that the Andhra Pradesh State Office (APSO) of WWF is actively taking up the theme for “Earth Hour 2014- Hyderabad unplug” is to switch off all lights for one hour on 29th March from 8.30 PM to 9.30PM to inculcate the habit of energy conservation and to encourage non conventional energy sources such as solar, wind etc.
The Commissioner has requested A Chandra Sekhara Reddy, CEO of State Energy Conservation mission to spread the message among the school children who can motivate the parents to conserve the energy at their residences and write letter to the education department to have a mechanism to monitor this programme in schools basing on their residential monthly electricity bills in order to appreciate the children who could reduce their electricity bills drastically.
Somesh Kumar assured the Committee that the lights in the entire jurisdiction of GHMC will be plugged off an hour except hospital and essential services from 8.30PM to 9.30PM on 29th March 2014 and GHMC will create awareness about the benefits of energy conservancy.
Speaking about the “Earth Hour City Challenge”, the Commissioner has informed that out of 163 cities in the World 34 cities were short listed among them 3 cities are from India and Hyderabad (GHMC) is one among them along with Cochin and Coimbatore. The Commissioner said that the winner city will be announced on March 27th at Vencor, Canada and requested the citizens of Hyderabad (GHMC) to vote for Hyderabad.
Ajay Jain has informed that he will seek the cooperation of all the students of Engineering Colleges to vote for Hyderabad in order to win the Earth Hour City Challenge.
Jayesh Ranjan, VC &MD, APIIC has informed that Earth Hour 2014 is aiming at a project of lighting the areas of Sunderban (Forest area in West Bengal) by crowd funding organised at one hour un plugging of Earth Hour 2014 on 29th March, 2014.
L Vandan Kumar, Additional Commissioner (Electrical), Anil Kumar V.Epur, Chairman, World Wide Fund for Nature and Niroop, Representative of ICLEI have participated in the meeting. (INN)