Cutting down TV hours
MANY suggestions are being floated by the government and the public to curtail the use of electricity to meet the aggregate shortfall of 3,500 MW nowadays.
The installed capacity of power generation in the country, if made to operate to its full capacity, will not only meet all our power requirement but may also be somewhat surplus to our needs.
Surprisingly no one has come up so far with yet another suggestion which could help us in this matter. According to the Pakistan Press Reference data, there are more than 3.5 million TV sets in the country, each of them consuming about 200 watts per hour.
The total power consumed by them is approximately 200 x 3.5 million, equal to 700 mega watts. I think if the TV/cable transmissions are restricted from 6pm to 9.30pm, as it used to be in the good old days of the 1960s, 700 MW of power would be available for the industry and the agriculture for most of the time.
It may also rekindle our nationalism to some degree by listening once again to ‘Pak sar zameen shaad baad’, with the national flag fluttering on the mini-screen at the TV transmission closing time. But who will bell the cat?
EHTISHAM RAFIQ
Karachi University
Source: Dawn
Date:5/3/2010
” 
” 
” 
” 
” 
