Energy Consumption chart

Type Of Appliance	Wattage	No. Of Units For Month Of 30 Days
		No. Of Hours Per Day
		1	2	4	6	8	10	12
Tube Light With Electronic Choke (Slim)	36	1	2	4	6	9	11	13
Tube Light With Ordinary Choke	52	2	3	6	9	12	16	19
General Light Source	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
Ceiling Fan / Table Fan	40	1	2	5	7	10	12	14
Celing Fan	75	2	5	9	14	18	23	27
Pedestal Fan	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
Exhaust Fan : Domestic	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
Industrial >	250	8	15	30	45	60	75	90
>	750	23	45	90	135	180	225	270
* Fridge165 Ltrs.	100	Consumption For > 2 Units / Day
* Fridge 310 Ltrs.	400	Continuous Running > 3 Units/Day
Wash M/C. Semi-Auto	230	7	14	28	41	55	69	83
Wash M/C. Full-Auto	320	10	19	38	58	77	96	115
Electric Iron : Ordinary	750	23	45	90	135	180	225	270
Automatic	750	23	45	90	135	180	225	270
Dhobi Iron	1000	30	60	120	180	240	300	360
Geyser >	2000	60	120	240	360	480	600	720
>	3000	90	180	360	540	720	900	1080
>	6000	180	360	720	1080	1440	1800	2160
Heater Storage Type/Immersion Rod	1000	30	60	120	180	240	300	360
	1500	45	90	180	270	360	450	540
Electric Kettle/Stove	1000	30	60	120	180	240	300	360
Electric Oven >	350	11	21	42	63	84	105	126
>	500	15	30	60	90	120	150	180
Cooker	1200	36	72	144	216	288	360	432
Toaster	750	23	45	90	135	180	225	270
Mixer Big	400	12	94	48	72	96	120	144
Mixer Small	250	8	15	30	45	60	75	90
Aquaguard >	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
>	200	6	12	24	36	48	60	72
Radio/Tape	50	2	3	6	9	12	15	18
Colour TV	80	2	5	10	14	19	24	29
VCP/VCR/CD/LD	30	1	2	4	5	7	9	11
Phone Answering Machine	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
Water Pump (1/2 HP)	375	11	23	45	68	90	113	135
Vacuum Cleaner	600	18	36	72	108	144	180	216
Sewing M/C. Cloth	100	3	6	12	18	24	30	36
Sewing M/C. Rexin	750	23	45	90	135	180	225	270
Room A/C. 1 Ton	1400	42	84	168	252	336	420	504
Room A/C. 1.5 Ton	2100	63	126	252	378	504	630	756
Air Cooler Small	250	8	15	30	45	60	75	90
Air Cooler Big	400	12	24	48	72	96	120	144
Computer	300	9	18	36	54	72	90	108
Monitor	70	2	4	8	13	17	21	25
Printer	25	1	2	3	5	6	8	9
Fax/Telex	250	8	15	30	45	60	75	90

DEDICATED TO THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE MUMBAI

We don't know who wrote this piece but here is a different and might I say, a very accurate assessment of a Mumbaikar. A must read! And, if anyone can identify the author, please let us all know.. Me Mumbaikar The gruesome battleground in South Mumbai has left us Mumbaikars fed up, scared, angry, willing to lash out, especially at the politicians. We now have an incoherent rant against "the other" or "the system". My heart goes out to the victims and this article in no way downplays the magnitude of the human tragedy. Yet as a lifelong Mumbaikar, I have not been able to shake a feeling that people have deliberately refused to grasp the essence of the problem because it is not conveniently gift wrapped with a bow on it. Simply put, there is no "other" to blame. Mumbaikars over decades of greed and rapacity, have destroyed rule of law and corrupted the systems which should have protected us. We are the system. We are the reality of Mumbai. We are its pestilence. It is convenient to demand action, to demand results, somehow, anyhow. Can we believe in a fantasy that a bureaucracy, government and law enforcement apparatus which have never delivered anything meaningful which we have ourselves strangled over the years, can suddenly start delivering results in one narrow sphere of security? AIDS victims don't die of AIDS. They die because AIDS reduces immunity and invites secondary diseases to feast on the weakened host. An AIDS patient can die from a common cold. Terrorists only descended upon the enfeebled carcass of Mumbai to deliver the coup de grace. They are the opportunistic secondary infection. Mumbai was always a symbol of opportunity and accomplishment, with the accompanying corruptions of any big city. But what is Mumbai today? It's a ghettoized city of intolerance where Raj Thackeray can rouse lakhs of people into hatred of an "other", where vegetarians can discriminate openly against the "other" in their buildings, where Muslim enclaves make the "other" uncomfortable in their midst, where a parallel economy and a parallel justice system can thrive. It is a city of corruption, where the police force has been emasculated, where constables have to take bribes to pay off the cost of their postings, where senior officials operate openly in collusion with industrial houses, where human trafficking and child abuse are openly tolerated in plain sight at traffic signals. It is a city of decay, where greedy and corrupt builders can destroy every last inch of breathing space, documents can be faked, BMC officials bought off en masse, protesters can be bullied and threatened, restaurant owners can dump their daily trash in any quiet street corner. It is a city of harassment, where kids on loud motorcycles can whiz about unstopped, where loud pandals and religious displays disturb people way into the night, where poor people live in constant fear of harassment by the police. It is a city of neglect, where we cannot even point to one bylane free of potholes and garbage, not for technical reasons but because it fuels the perpetual motion machine of contracts and corruption. It is a city where the local governance become an enemy of the people, grabbing parks, destroying open mangroves, dumping huge toxic waste in plain view of its citizens. Ask a Mumbaikar from the slums what fun it is to get his kid's birth certificate from the BMC, to get past a police check, to get a lawyer who won't cheat him for common things,to get a judge who won't delay his case indefinitely. A poor "unconnected" person or a single woman would think thrice before walking into a police station to get help and even then would not do it. Above all Mumbai is a city of temporary convenience and compromise with no core values left to hold on to. The euphoria of economic growth justified every short cut and every depredation. Beneath the facade, Mumbai fell apart street by street, tree by tree, victim by victim. Mumbai is not an international city, it is an international joke. It is easier to take offense or retreat behind cliches, than to sincerely ponder the truth of this statement. The city cannot provide roads, fire service, ambulance service, police safety to its people. Those who feel it is "part of the charm" to walk past open garbage and people defecating, to drive on wretched roads, to not have any place to take your child to play, to have parks grabbed by local slumlords, are in denial about their hometown. They add to the apathy which keeps it in decline. We try to talk ourselves into believing that the human vibrancy covers up the physical dehumanization. Each and every one of these acts is perpetrated by a Mumbaikar. Each incident is like an incident of unprotected sex which takes the victim closer to the fatal disease. Each instance of apathy is just like one who cannot be bothered to wear a condom. A successful crime reduction effort in New York is called "Broken Windows". Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building. Small crimes, if not stopped lead to large crimes, hence even a broken window should be pursued and punished by an alert citizenry, equipped police force and effective prosecution system. This indicates of the interconnectedness of things. Sorry to say, neither protests nor candles nor political resignations can help us. Not even an election. Who will you vote for? Throw out Manmohan and bring in Advani? There is no "One" who will sweep in on a white horse and save us. The world is now too complex and too interconnected for a single Obama or some mythical Kalki to come in and sweep clean with a magic wand. That only happens in films. Until and unless there is a mass movement of self-realization on the scale of the freedom movement, the city will continue to bleed. A corrupt, weakened and demoralized force is not suddenly going to wake up and become a crack squad. A polity used to the easy days and fat life is not suddenly going to snap into action when it has been unable (despite similar outcries) to even keep the Mithi clear or keep the highway free of potholes. Let's not glamorize the spirit of Mumbai or the beauty. It is purely money power and film dazzle which keeps this image intact. Neither Mr. Tata with his billions nor Mr. Bachchan with his pistol was there to save us on Wednesday night. We were saved by lower middle class jawans who on a normal Sunday would not even be allowed to enter the Taj or Oberoi by the security, who cannot even afford a Thums Up at Souk. Do we even deserve these amazing young men to fight and die for us when every public figure and Page 3 celebrity is on air spewing verbal diarrhea about our fear and trauma? The very same businessmen who pay customs and excise officers to look the other way ten times a day, now want them to be vigilant the eleventh time and catch the arms. We have forgotten the RDX which landed under very noses of Customs in 1993.. The same citizenry which doesn't care if builders illegally encroach approach areas and roadsides, now want to know why fire forces can't do their job. The same contractors, who cheat and embezzle funds meant for equipment for cops, are now furious about the inadequate body armor and .303s. All because "our" Taj and Oberoi are under attack. Where goes Mumbai, so the rest of the nation. Governance and rule of law are at an all time low. Rights of poor people and middle class urban dwellers are trampled brutally. The backlog of cases and toothless enforcement makes a mockery of the Constitution which has enough teeth in it for many common problems. We had a window of unprecedented growth where we could have set systems and infrastructure straight. We did not, instead reveling superficially in our new -found easy wealth and sweeping any honest inquiry and intellectual thought process under the carpet. Today we find that the much-feted titans of industry and finance were drunk on a global binge of easy debt and bogus stock valuations, and that the real growth has not traveled to the people who needed it, that real fundamental nation building value has not been created to the extent it was believed. Today we need the army to throw out Lashkar from Colaba Causeway, what will we say when Naxalite cadets show up in Chennai? We always say "Me Mumbaikar Aahe". This is us. We are the ones who whittled away like termites at the gates and then threw down a red carpet of blood for terrorists to waltz in and shoot up our town like some drug-crazed teenagers on a weekend spree. Only a Mumbaikar can truly understand that feeling of enraged impotence at the sight of these animals strolling down our historic downtown redefining forever the Mumbai taunt "Baap ka road hai" We are not to blame for their inhuman choice to perpetrate violence upon innocents. No secularist, no apologist, no CNN reporter, can justify that action. But we are to blame for our failure to protect ourselves and we are to blame for our inability to change the systems that made it possible from a fundamental level. Unless we re-engage our civic society as responsible and honest citizens of our own free will, we cannot expect better from our institutions. Let's start with the hard, thankless and unglamorous task of fixing the broken windows and potholes. We have a very long way to go before reclaiming our Maximum City from what we have allowed it to become. Only then can we show the lead to the rest of the nation as we have always prided ourselves on doing. With regards and be safe, Anonymous

LALBAUGCHA RAJA. - 2008

Bombay bursting, Common man hurting

Bombay is the financial capital of the country. This tag was gained by this city due to whatever history went into doing so.

Today, due to several reasons (90% of them related to governance and power squabbles aka as Politics), the city is not just losing it's glory and charm but HAS LOST almost 90% of it.

I have lived in Bombay for the last 15 years - it seems a long time.. but time has just flown past - grappling with simple issues.

Along the way I have seen the city change from being a sophisticatedly clean and well managed city to now being termed a rogue and utterly mismanaged dumping ground.

The deterioration has been noticed by several people.

People who have called this city their home but no longer live here on a permanent basis still talk only about the nostalgic days and times they spent, not about how the city has transformed and morphed.

This transformation has been clearly from the good to the present bad to the upcoming worse - almost like the transformation of a home trained and bred pet dog becoming a street mongrel - an owner-less situation that turns the dog unkempt and wild and totally disillusioned and disconnected from it's past glory.

Bombay is being held at ransom - the true spirit of Bombay that is.

When we talk of the true spirit of Bombay, as Prahlad Kakkar mentioned in his recent HT article, the true spirit of the city was it's acceptance of the thorough professional. Anyone who was good in their profession was accepted here and they were the ones who gave this city that character.

No longer the case.

The city, being part of the bigger state of Maharashtra has actually been given (and unfortunately easily accepted), a step- motherly treatment just because of it's professionalism and growth.

Here comes the root cause if you will, which I see as the driving force behind all this mayhem.

It's the difference in the attitude, in the culture of the people who were originally a part of this professional city vs. those who saw the city's growth as an opportunity to bask in the glory without understanding the spirit that brought this glory

- these people arrived and just dumped themselves into all nooks and corners of this city generating the huge number of slums.

You notice these types of people around mostly - the kind that are happy to work and produce results if they have a good manager, a manager who understands the big picture and can understand that each of the team member is happy to do their bit and the manager can put these bits together for the big picture.

This was the constituency of Bombay of the yesteryears - from the common man's perspective.
The common man, so uniquely captured by R. K. Lakshman was the one who wanted things to go on smoothly as long as (s)he worked hard for him/herself and in parallel contributing to the big picture. The simple story of life - if you want to call it so.

Then came this whole change factor. Maybe the media wanted to take some credit for it, they started touting India's prowess and shone the spotlight on Bombay, calling it the Financial Capital of the city.

The public of this nation has been very gullible since time immemorial - and so was the common man. They lapped up the story about this city being the best of the cities of the country.

So the influx began. People started making this city a destination of sorts. People from all strata of life came in to try their luck - at the stock market, at the movie industry, and all the ancillary areas that would support this influx.

Here thus, the opportunistic politician sensed in this - vote bank numbers.

Mind you, as they say 'ghar ka bhedi lanka dhaye', 'an insider's hand' - these things would not be possible without someone from within making things happen. And who but the wily local politician was the insider.

The political parties who want to have ownership of the city's vote bank have played it very cleverly to own this piece of fortune to themselves.

The politicians knew that the professionals who were in this city were able to see through their guise of deception that they don to garner votes and then disappeared.

The alternative way was to bring in the vote bank from outside, into the city, give them enough than where they came from, keeping them just about happy and thus get to rule the roost.

That is what has happened under the able guidance of the incapable municipal governance which is NOT run by professionals, the transportation and infrastructure projects which are NOT run by professionals.
- What has been run by professionals was well managed and it has shown positive results.
- What has been run by lumberheads has shown a degradation in all aspects - be it transportation, logistics, infrastructure - the works.

Today in Bombay thus, you find more people who have come from a certain part of the nation who form a very strong vote bank for the politicians who also have originated from those parts. These people are the ones who are crowding the city, it's infrastructure, everything of it, in a huge way.

It is these people, who are willing to live in the worst of situations, without sanitation or basic amenities, running the autos, taxis, who are the security guards for buildings - all key areas that really matter for the 'hoi polloi and those who live by dependency. It is these people who are crowding into the city.

And the city is bursting at it's seams.

But the biggest and the strongest factor that has led to this situation is the laid back, i-don't-care-two-hoots attitude of the locals, who allowed this to happen.

Locals, who worked in government agencies, transportation dept, RTO, the municipal corporation etc. allowed themselves to be 'influenced' by outsiders, for their own short term gratification, avoiding hard work (which the outsiders were willing to do for almost nothing), wanting to just work fixed times and then relax.

None of the locals you would find working as security guards, or drive autos or taxis. Why?? because their egos come in the way, they find these jobs to be very debasing. But they are all willing to go around causing vandalism on others whom they allowed to in the very first place.

It is this laid back attitude that allowed the outsiders to take advantage of the insiders and make way into every corner and aspect of running/ruining the city.

So the story of Bombay, as now the story of several other cities is about the conflict between professionals who should ideally be the real guides of a city's progress vs. the not-so-professionals who are pouring into the cities but only to "make hay as the sun shines".

And in this conflict, the professionals are suffering because they have seen professional life around the world, and expect the same in their home - India.

These huge adjustments to the Indian non-professionalism in all facets makes it difficult to accept India as a growing economy or for that matter as a professional place to work in.

In short, a professional city is being held ransom at the hands of unprofessionals - the politicians, builders, thugs, slum dwellers, you name them.

The ultimate solution is that the professionals of today take alternative routes and get into governance and make the change, rather than wait for the change to happen. The common man needs to rise for the common cause - a huge sacrifice that probably the existing generations do not have the gut for.

Rain sob

Bombay and rains... rains and Bombay
now since 2005, these 2 terms go together like a boat on water...

Today the first 20 min shower hit the Goregaon area and there was already waterlogging.

In short, the situation is going to be worse this time - reason, the concretization of the roads is the root cause. This work has not been carried out by 'technically sound' people. It has been carried out haphazardly by the labor oriented mindset which just wants the work to be done and get away with it. No attention is paid to technically implementing a sound design and ensure quality work.
There is no slope concept - the concrete is paved in such a way that at places it forms a water catchement, instead of sloping to the sides of the road, the water is collected right there in the middle, which eventually seeps into the concrete and loosens it up!! lo and behold, the pot holes are right there again...
Similarly, to save on the labor and resources, the contractors smartly butt in the interlocking blocks along almost 5 ft. from the concrete patch till the edge.
Resulting impact - the patch under the interlocking block slips and slides and gives way so that the surface caves in. Water collects and there you have a part of moonscape on earth.

In the event of heavy rains, the water has no way to go but flow over these patchy work, and the force carries away with it all the mindless, stupid hard work put in by a mentality of work that has no regard for any technology nor to quality of work, thereby bringing the whole city back to ground zero.
Where do we go from here....
reams of paper again talks about the BMC disaster management cell, crores of tax money going into the hands of monkeys who will not just play around with the instruments but probably will misuse half of them and by the time the rains are over, the disaster management equipment will end up in some disastrous state.