Comment by devnull3
20 days ago
The load shedding was a chronic problem. It lasted months if not years.
Example from year 2003 (city = Pune) [1]. Its hard to read
Excerpt:
The load shedding schedule is as follows:
Group A: Monday 8 am to 11 am, Tuesday 11 am to 2 pm,Wednesday 3 to 6 pm, Saturday 11 am to 2 pm: Navi Peth, Gultekdi I and II, Dhankawdi, Padmawati, Old Parvati I and II, SNDT, G Block, Parsi agiary, City Apollo, Sant Tukaram, Kharalwadi.
Group B: Monday 11 am to 2 pm, Tuesday 3 pm to 6 pm, Friday 8 am to 11 am
[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/mseb-announces...
This continued even in 2013. Had to finally pay for an inverter because PCs do not have built in batteries like laptops do and work was being impacted.
Useless industries like RO water, gensets, inverters etc are so much larger in India because of governmental abdication of responsibility due to political compulsions. Once you have your own house, or live in a gated community/highrise with its own water/power infra, you get almost western levels of comfort without the messiness of the outside world.
RO water is Reverse Osmosis water. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis)
What's RO water?
Btw, what you describe is also true of malls. Basically, every country has shiny malls.
Every house there (that can afford the essential $200 or so) has a Reverse Osmosis water filter because the municipal water supply (if any) is not considered potable.
I just don't understand why government didn't step in and raise the price of electricity 5x.
It is better to have electricity 24x7 but only 50 watts to run a fridge, phone charger and one lightbulb, than to have electricity 3 hours a day but be running 1000 watts of airconditioners.
I guess perhaps energy theft was too hard to police?
You’re assuming a far more functional system than what was going on.
“And there was no penalty for not paying—there were no regulations allowing the utilities to cut off a customer’s power.”
Collecting more money in a corrupt organization doesn’t means they will automatically get a more effective distribution system.
> and raise the price of electricity 5x.
People wont vote for them if they increased the price by 5x.
And then there’s the small matter of it being financially ruinous for the poorest people
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