Three villages in Mohali district now use only Compressed Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs).

Officials of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) say this has led to the saving of power by 80 per cent. A 20 watt CFL provides light equivalent to 100 watt ordinary bulb, claim officials of the Board.

Ratwara Sahib, Jandpur and Santemajra are the first villages in this district to switch over to CFL by replacing ordinary bulbs, PSEB Senior Executive Engineer HS Boparai told Newsline. While Jandpur and Santemajra villages have 250 houses each, Ratwara Sahib village houses 75 families. The campaign was launched by PSEB.

Boparai said it took much effort to persuade the villagers to adopt CFLs, which are otherwise costlier than ordinary bulbs. Once the prominent villagers believed that these would lead to lower bills, the project became successful.

“Initially, we refused to believe what PSEB officials said. But after we replaced four ordinary bulbs with CFLs in our house, we have seen major power saving,” said Prem Singh of Jandpur village. Adds Atma Singh of Ratwara Sahib village, “Earlier my electricity meter used to run very fast. But since I have replaced all ordinary bulbs, the speed of the meter has come down.”

Santemajra village sarpanch Jasveer Singh takes pride in his village taking completely to the use of CFL s. Recently, PSEB Chairman YS Ratra had instructed the board officials to convert at least one village in every distribution circle into 100 per cent CFL one.