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Accompanied by pelting rain and loud claps of thunder, Delhiites observed the Earth Hour one hour when the city enforced its pledge to fight climate change. Between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on 28-03-2009, as the city witnessed an unexpected but welcome thunderstorm, several of its resident welfare associations, corporates, cinema halls and heritage monuments switched off all non-essential lights. A large number of Delhiites turned up at Dilli Haat, where the event organized by the World Wildlife Fund had been scheduled. Braving the downpour, they lit candles and watched the performance by Shovana Narayan's dance troupe. Dr R K Pachauri, who also ventured out in the wild weather to lend his support to the cause, drew attention to the unpredictable weather patterns and said it was time all countries took responsibility for the changes.
The Archaeological Survey of India turned off the lights at most of its major monuments, including Humayun's Tomb, Qutab Minar and Purana Qila, all through Saturday. At Red Fort, however, the symbolic turning off of lights took place at 8.30pm.
ITDC also joined hands by turning off all non-essential lights at three of its hotels in Delhi. Through this, they estimated, they would have saved 1,200 units of electricity. According to the ITDC spokesperson, the hotels used only emergency lights, candles and diyas during the one hour.
As several other landmarks in the city such as PVR cinemas, DLF buildings and the Raj Niwas turned off their non-essential lights, many residential colonies also pitched in.
Discom NDPL, which sent out about 4.5 lakh messages to its consumers on Saturday to join the Earth Hour, reported a substantial drop in demand. According to its spokesperson, the demand in its distribution network fell from an average of 800-900 MW to 500 MW on Saturday. "We were underdrawing substantially due to this load relief,'' said the NDPL CEO. BSES also sent over 6 lakh SMSs to its consumers asking them to participate in the event.
The voluntary blackout for an hour had a lot of enthusiastic takers. Residents, specially children, made posters and visited homes in their respective colonies asking their neighbours to join in. In Kaushambi, near Anand Vihar, children distributed posters and voluntarily switched off lights in their buildings and parking lots.
Several sectors in Rohini also switched off the lights even though the weather dampened some residents' plans of a community get-together. "It was a blackout in our area during the Earth Hour. Besides the streetlights, residents had kept only those lights on that were necessary. We had requested all 10,000 residents to participate and most of them joined in happily,'' said R C Kamboj, president of Rohini RWA.
Jangpura residents were also very supportive of the initiative. "We had requested all residents to be part of this initiative to save energy. At my home I organized a candlelight dinner with my family.'' said Monu Chaddha, RWA president, Jangpura.
Romi Chopra, a Vasant Vihar resident, said: "In any case we are used to load-shedding throughout the day. This symbolic gesture of switching off all non-essential lights is a novel idea and has the scope of creating an enormous impact.''
Source - Times of India
