Lighting A Billion Lives

Over 1.6 billion people in the world lack access to electricity;roughly 25% are in India alone.For these people life comes to a standstill after dusk.Inadequate lighting is not only an impediment to progress and development oppurtunities,but also has a direct impact in health,environment,and safety of millions of people,as they are forced to light their homes with kerosene lamps,dung cakes ,firewood and crop residue after sunset.

Resognizing the need to change the existing scenario,TERI,with its vision to work for global sustainable development and its commitment towards creating innovative solutions for a better tommorow,has undertaken an initiative of 'Lighting a Billion Lives' (LaBL) through use of solar energy.

The Campaign aims to bring light into the lives of billion rural people by replacing the kerosene and parrafin lanterns with soler lighting devices.This will facilitate education of children;provides better illumination and kerosene smoke-free indoor environment for women to do their household chores;provide oppurtunities for livelihoods both at the individual level and at the village level.

The Campaign targets all communities across the world that lack access to modern and clean sources of lighting.Through this campaign,local entrepreneur-driven delivery channels are created for distribution and servicing of solar lanterns to rural communities,for whom kerosene is the predominant feul for lighting - not only in households but also in small enterprises such as shops,local bazars,tution and coaching centres,and cottage industries.The campaign is being implemented according to a necessity index that has been developed for each state in India.

We living in metro cities never understand the hardships faced by our fellow humans.We never think when we use a light,fan or A/C or other electronic consumerables,we only think about our comforts.Even i agree that we actually need all this,but some basic awareness,like switching off unwanted power like laptop or garden lamps when not in use.This move will save electricity and even our earth from global warming.And we can save our earth to our future generations.Stop being selfish and start thinking wise.The less we use electricity,the more we are co-operating for preserving our earth for future generations and providing light to people who never saw bright evenings.Lets us come together and save electricity by basic awareness and some responsibility.I know what u must be thinking by nw,may be u thinking that we alone cannot change anything.Well the truth is we alone cannot bring 100% change but we alone can bring 0.00001% of change.And thats what i believe in.So stop giving excuses and start acting.We must do this,not for someone else but for ourselves.We must save our mother earth and her beauty atleast thinking about our future children or future grandchildren..