Now that Lokpal is over we need to start looking at Votepal which I am assuming like the Lokpal will be above everyone including the PM.
The primary aim is to have a check on the politicians (which has become a bad word!) and have a balance with civil society giving them at least a slight majority. We need to achieve a stage where the elections will happen only once every 5 years to avoid unnecessary expenses.
Since normal Civil Society can never compete in our elections we need to provide a 33% reservation to non politicians. This would mean anyone who does not have primary membership in any political party but are members of any of the Civil Society organizations (whatever that means!).
Also on the non reserved seats we can have an option to Reject all candidates and under such a scenario the Votepal panel will have the right to nominate the representative and which party they should belong to. This is to avoid unnecessary expense by repeated elections.
With these two points of Reservation and Option to Reject if the non-politicians can't get a majority then we will have the right to Recall. This is similar to Operation Lotus that happened in Karnataka so that some of the politicians can be recalled (forced to resign). The Votepal will have the right to take proactive action towards this as the voters in the constituency may be scared to complain.
This will ensure that the control will be with the party that the Votepal panel chooses as they understand what is best for the country.
Now finally the Lokpal and Votepal can live happily ever after....and the aam aadmi who are represented by the civil society will be in a position to pass any law required!
While most of my other articles are serious wild thoughts this stops at being wild thoughts but nothing serious. I am sure Team Anna and other Civil Society members will come up with good suggestions for Electoral reforms.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Lokpal was not required for these...
I am trying to classify various acts/instances/irritants we have faced, how some have been solved already and if lokpal is required to solve the other problems. I am not sure how many of the solutions we see below were done by passing laws that provided for stiff punishments. I think there are enough laws to take care of these already. We need simplification of rules, transparency, automation and processes which are well defined and has time limits. I think in all offices there should be a tatkal and regular which can be done by higher fee payment which can be used to increase the staff. The entire day should be recorded on video for both the user and the staff's safety and to prevent bribing. This should be made mandatory especially in offices where the user has to go in person like an RTO for example. Ideally these videos should be viewable by inspectors on an internet connection. Now here are some instances I could think of and some that were reminded by friends when talking about the changes we have seen that have helped. Please add other instances you can think of. Here are the few I have listed which makes this long...
1) To buy a 2 rupee bus ticket, conductor ask for 1 rupee and does not give a ticket. Obviously pockets the money.
This would probably have been categorized as petty theft by the conductor but the passenger would be co-accused for not paying the full amount and insisting on a ticket. This was just being convenient for both parties involved and so no one would have complained but ends up causing losses.
Early on this was solved by providing targets and penalizing conductors by having surprise inspections and also having some kind of a lucky dip on the tickets itself so passengers insisted on taking them. Now you also have automatic ticketing machines inside the bus and online ticket reservation system in place and the surprise inspection still continues.
2) We need a copy of the land records. Official fee used to be Rs. 10 to 15 but the guy who needs to give us says, come tomorrow, come next week and so on unless you give a bribe. This was a pain in the rural areas.
This was harassment and small level of corruption where the person was misusing his position to force a bribe and corruption that caused irritation.
This was solved by computerizing the records and on payment of a fee you are given a challan which when produced the guy at the kiosk gives a print out. This and many more benefits have accrued from the Bhoomi project and recently records have been made available on the internet and the survey maps have started getting entered in GIS.
3) The police verification is needed for the passport process to be completed. The police needs to send the police verification without which the passport does not proceed. So you have to keep going to the police station to find the writer and see how to get this speeded up.
This was again misuse of their position and your urgency in getting the passport. Sure case of harassment by delay to get what they can from you leading to corruption of irritation and leaving you helpless.
This has been solved by providing a fixed period of 30 days or so before which the police report needs to be sent. If not the passport office assumes there is no issue and proceeds. This has made the writer to come looking for you now to show he is doing his job and requests to give him what you can. This is now more like tips given for a service rendered. Off course the passport process itself is very well automated and streamlined.
4) You want to register a property and you are doing everything within the rules. You already calculate 10% which includes the bribe to be given to the sub registrar and his office for what he/she is supposed to do anyway.
This is something that most of us budget as part of the registration fee. In fact more than this the buyer will want to pay by cash with an intent of of reducing the registration fee. In this case I believe the buyer/seller is more corrupt if they do this even compared to the sub registrars office.
This I think needs to be addressed to reduce the black money growth. Make sure the market value reflects the actual value. At least have the rate taken from the average of the past so many number of transactions or over past so many months. Also reduce the registration fee percentage from around 8% to maybe 2 or 3% similar to the agent commission.
5) Go to renew driving license you are made to run from one counter to another to make you feel that it is a really tough job to get this done. Magically you are pushed towards an agent who has a shop just outside the RTO.
Most of the process is set in place but people are not made aware. The agent thrives on the irritant factor. This irritation can easily be removed by making it mandatory to have the steps clearly outlined and have a counter system similar to the bank. Here I believe things are simplified quite a bit but is not brought out clearly which is what someone can work on. The good thing here is once the forms are all submitted and the photographs taken you are sure of getting the license. There are either the agents or many folks there trying to show they are helping and expect a tip which can be made official support organization in some way for which people will not mind.
6) Trying to get the completion certificate for the house the inspector wants to do an inspection, finds no issues. Asks for a bunch of drawings, papers, once all those are there he tries to find a technicality. Keeps delaying to see how urgent your need is.
The inspector wants to find violations which he can help waive by showing incorrectly in his inspection report and get money against that. If this is the case again no irritation to the builder as he wants the completion done. The inspector gives a false report and if caught later on can always say some portions were built after the inspection. This is total misuse of office and if found the inspector needs to be heavily penalized. All the buildings should be put in GIS and periodic reviews should be done.
In the case where the builder is clean things should be solved by providing a timeline before which it should be mandatory to provide with the completion certificate or a in writing why it can't be done.
I can think of many more cases where it was worse earlier and has improved over the years. I can also think of many cases which I have faced will not be solved by another legislation that still assumes we will complain. Just some thoughts to see if there is a need for a lokpal to cover all these or leave the lokpal at the high level misuse and abuse cases focusing on the people in higher positions.
1) To buy a 2 rupee bus ticket, conductor ask for 1 rupee and does not give a ticket. Obviously pockets the money.
This would probably have been categorized as petty theft by the conductor but the passenger would be co-accused for not paying the full amount and insisting on a ticket. This was just being convenient for both parties involved and so no one would have complained but ends up causing losses.
Early on this was solved by providing targets and penalizing conductors by having surprise inspections and also having some kind of a lucky dip on the tickets itself so passengers insisted on taking them. Now you also have automatic ticketing machines inside the bus and online ticket reservation system in place and the surprise inspection still continues.
2) We need a copy of the land records. Official fee used to be Rs. 10 to 15 but the guy who needs to give us says, come tomorrow, come next week and so on unless you give a bribe. This was a pain in the rural areas.
This was harassment and small level of corruption where the person was misusing his position to force a bribe and corruption that caused irritation.
This was solved by computerizing the records and on payment of a fee you are given a challan which when produced the guy at the kiosk gives a print out. This and many more benefits have accrued from the Bhoomi project and recently records have been made available on the internet and the survey maps have started getting entered in GIS.
3) The police verification is needed for the passport process to be completed. The police needs to send the police verification without which the passport does not proceed. So you have to keep going to the police station to find the writer and see how to get this speeded up.
This was again misuse of their position and your urgency in getting the passport. Sure case of harassment by delay to get what they can from you leading to corruption of irritation and leaving you helpless.
This has been solved by providing a fixed period of 30 days or so before which the police report needs to be sent. If not the passport office assumes there is no issue and proceeds. This has made the writer to come looking for you now to show he is doing his job and requests to give him what you can. This is now more like tips given for a service rendered. Off course the passport process itself is very well automated and streamlined.
4) You want to register a property and you are doing everything within the rules. You already calculate 10% which includes the bribe to be given to the sub registrar and his office for what he/she is supposed to do anyway.
This is something that most of us budget as part of the registration fee. In fact more than this the buyer will want to pay by cash with an intent of of reducing the registration fee. In this case I believe the buyer/seller is more corrupt if they do this even compared to the sub registrars office.
This I think needs to be addressed to reduce the black money growth. Make sure the market value reflects the actual value. At least have the rate taken from the average of the past so many number of transactions or over past so many months. Also reduce the registration fee percentage from around 8% to maybe 2 or 3% similar to the agent commission.
5) Go to renew driving license you are made to run from one counter to another to make you feel that it is a really tough job to get this done. Magically you are pushed towards an agent who has a shop just outside the RTO.
Most of the process is set in place but people are not made aware. The agent thrives on the irritant factor. This irritation can easily be removed by making it mandatory to have the steps clearly outlined and have a counter system similar to the bank. Here I believe things are simplified quite a bit but is not brought out clearly which is what someone can work on. The good thing here is once the forms are all submitted and the photographs taken you are sure of getting the license. There are either the agents or many folks there trying to show they are helping and expect a tip which can be made official support organization in some way for which people will not mind.
6) Trying to get the completion certificate for the house the inspector wants to do an inspection, finds no issues. Asks for a bunch of drawings, papers, once all those are there he tries to find a technicality. Keeps delaying to see how urgent your need is.
The inspector wants to find violations which he can help waive by showing incorrectly in his inspection report and get money against that. If this is the case again no irritation to the builder as he wants the completion done. The inspector gives a false report and if caught later on can always say some portions were built after the inspection. This is total misuse of office and if found the inspector needs to be heavily penalized. All the buildings should be put in GIS and periodic reviews should be done.
In the case where the builder is clean things should be solved by providing a timeline before which it should be mandatory to provide with the completion certificate or a in writing why it can't be done.
I can think of many more cases where it was worse earlier and has improved over the years. I can also think of many cases which I have faced will not be solved by another legislation that still assumes we will complain. Just some thoughts to see if there is a need for a lokpal to cover all these or leave the lokpal at the high level misuse and abuse cases focusing on the people in higher positions.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
No need for Lokpal...
I am not sure why we need more laws and legislation. We hear the Jan Lokpal saying that we need Lokpal as an institution, independent of the Judiciary and the Executive and basically be nominated by say a panel of various eminent personalities. Now we have the police, the CBI, the Vigilance department which are all supposed to take care of criminal and corruption angles.
I can't understand why we can't just say that heads of these institutions such as CBI, the Vigilance department and the head of police in each state will be nominated by a panel instead of the existing methodology where some of these are political.
We have to see how we can get the heads of various boards such as the housing boards etc. also be nominated by a panel of eminent personalities.
Doing this and putting in systems of transparency and simplification of the rules should help in a big way to break the politician-institution nexus and hence make it difficult to be corrupt. I am sure we will be able to get enough heads of institutions who are clean and then allow them to enforce the cleanliness top down. Then making sure that these heads have the final say in terms of transfers etc will ensure that each of these departments work independently.
Just my wild thoughts on changing the existing rather than yet another institution.
I can't understand why we can't just say that heads of these institutions such as CBI, the Vigilance department and the head of police in each state will be nominated by a panel instead of the existing methodology where some of these are political.
We have to see how we can get the heads of various boards such as the housing boards etc. also be nominated by a panel of eminent personalities.
Doing this and putting in systems of transparency and simplification of the rules should help in a big way to break the politician-institution nexus and hence make it difficult to be corrupt. I am sure we will be able to get enough heads of institutions who are clean and then allow them to enforce the cleanliness top down. Then making sure that these heads have the final say in terms of transfers etc will ensure that each of these departments work independently.
Just my wild thoughts on changing the existing rather than yet another institution.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Violations leads to corruption
What is corruption? While people try to blame the powerful and the politicians of corruption I believe that everyone is corrupt to an extent. While the people tend to think that it needs to be stopped from the top I believe it needs to be stopped from the bottom.
Any violation needs to be punished or penalised and in order to avoid the action ends up in some form of corruption. Violation of the building plan, Violation of the footpath, Parking violations, jumping a signal, driving in the wrong direction in a one way are some of the very basic violations that most people can relate to.
Everyone violates the rules to an extent as it is accepted. We pay a speed fee to get what is lawful, done quickly. Some people with power, influence and money start misusing the rules, some others abuse the rules. Now people get really angry but helpless when the rules are abused. They tend to be irritated when the rules are misused. Everyone accepts that a little bit of violation here and there and is ok. THIS is the main problem.
Similar to drugs or drinking what starts of as a little violation ends up in being misused and abused. People start believing that they are not doing any wrong and THAT is when it becomes a problem. So at the lowest level the rules need to be simple and enforced completely. Whether it is a red light when a vehicle has to stop or a no parking where we park the vehicle, going in a one way, getting the violation approved or even still build in violation of the approval. Just doing a survey of building violation will tell how much bribes have passed hands.
An example of a speed fee would be bribing to get a valid work done out of turn and a misuse would be to bribe to get approval even though there are violations. Create problems to someone else to benefit yourself would be abuse.
In fact most corrupt would be happy if the violations are many so it helps provide 'solutions' for a 'fee' which is corruption!
Any violation needs to be punished or penalised and in order to avoid the action ends up in some form of corruption. Violation of the building plan, Violation of the footpath, Parking violations, jumping a signal, driving in the wrong direction in a one way are some of the very basic violations that most people can relate to.
Everyone violates the rules to an extent as it is accepted. We pay a speed fee to get what is lawful, done quickly. Some people with power, influence and money start misusing the rules, some others abuse the rules. Now people get really angry but helpless when the rules are abused. They tend to be irritated when the rules are misused. Everyone accepts that a little bit of violation here and there and is ok. THIS is the main problem.
Similar to drugs or drinking what starts of as a little violation ends up in being misused and abused. People start believing that they are not doing any wrong and THAT is when it becomes a problem. So at the lowest level the rules need to be simple and enforced completely. Whether it is a red light when a vehicle has to stop or a no parking where we park the vehicle, going in a one way, getting the violation approved or even still build in violation of the approval. Just doing a survey of building violation will tell how much bribes have passed hands.
An example of a speed fee would be bribing to get a valid work done out of turn and a misuse would be to bribe to get approval even though there are violations. Create problems to someone else to benefit yourself would be abuse.
In fact most corrupt would be happy if the violations are many so it helps provide 'solutions' for a 'fee' which is corruption!
Beautification of the City
The city has a lot of things that need cleaning up. When we choose to observe we see enough ugliness around. It is probably that our mind has got used to certain levels of dirt and ugliness. The cleaning needs to be targeting towards the three sense organs associated with Sight, Smell and Noise.
The govt initiative on cleaning up the walls, plastering and then having artists do theme paintings is a very good idea and maybe someone's 'Wild thought' which I welcome. We need to get the pavements in a walkable condition with no obstructions. Need to start identifying roads that are easy to clear of everything including wires and we should do that first. If we can allow the trees to grow around these roads even better. These will help the city LOOK clean.
We have the sewers, the exhausts from the vehicles, the road side acting as a bathroom which results in smell that makes us hold our breath. While we beatify the outside walls of the parks or paint the fence and roads it would be good to grow flowering plants and trees along the roads to negate some of the gabbu vasine. Notice here I am not saying remove the smell as that will be a bigger effort and that is what we have failed to do so long. So outdo it with better smelling flowers or some samrani smoke. I believe that when we burn the dried leaves or rubber (burning rubber should be banned!) we should try to use the fire to emit a better smell by using healthy additives like samrani or say a insect repellant.
The noise pollution is a bigger problem as it will be difficult to mask it unless every person wears earmuffs. Here I guess we would need a combination of preventing the noise and also masking at each user level. I think we should use technology here to have headphone based earmuffs with noise reduction. That would be great if a Bose, Sony or a Phillip would come up with the noise cancellation but hear people talking or a honk in a lower tone. For a person walking on the streets it should be similar to a person sitting inside a vehicle with the windows raised and AC ON as a minimum experience.
We may categorize the reasons as not enough clean toilets, not easy way of disposing dry leaves, too much honking, not enough resources both people and money to have a good looking view and so on. We have to solve these by Wild thoughts which I am sure that as aam jantha we can come up with if we put our collective thoughts together.
The govt initiative on cleaning up the walls, plastering and then having artists do theme paintings is a very good idea and maybe someone's 'Wild thought' which I welcome. We need to get the pavements in a walkable condition with no obstructions. Need to start identifying roads that are easy to clear of everything including wires and we should do that first. If we can allow the trees to grow around these roads even better. These will help the city LOOK clean.
We have the sewers, the exhausts from the vehicles, the road side acting as a bathroom which results in smell that makes us hold our breath. While we beatify the outside walls of the parks or paint the fence and roads it would be good to grow flowering plants and trees along the roads to negate some of the gabbu vasine. Notice here I am not saying remove the smell as that will be a bigger effort and that is what we have failed to do so long. So outdo it with better smelling flowers or some samrani smoke. I believe that when we burn the dried leaves or rubber (burning rubber should be banned!) we should try to use the fire to emit a better smell by using healthy additives like samrani or say a insect repellant.
The noise pollution is a bigger problem as it will be difficult to mask it unless every person wears earmuffs. Here I guess we would need a combination of preventing the noise and also masking at each user level. I think we should use technology here to have headphone based earmuffs with noise reduction. That would be great if a Bose, Sony or a Phillip would come up with the noise cancellation but hear people talking or a honk in a lower tone. For a person walking on the streets it should be similar to a person sitting inside a vehicle with the windows raised and AC ON as a minimum experience.
We may categorize the reasons as not enough clean toilets, not easy way of disposing dry leaves, too much honking, not enough resources both people and money to have a good looking view and so on. We have to solve these by Wild thoughts which I am sure that as aam jantha we can come up with if we put our collective thoughts together.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Power Problems : Generation and distribution
Everyone acknowledges there is a power problem but all the solutions we hear, from a common persons perspective, are long term and long gestation ones . It has been long enough since we as a nation became independent and hence the same approach of the past few decades will not alleviate the immediate needs in this sector and the suspicion that nothing will get done remains.
How will Power problem be solved. Both the supply side and demand side has to be looked at. While the issue is ever increasing demand in urban areas it is the supply side and distribution issues in rural areas and smaller towns.
So the solution put in a simple way is to:
1. Increase Power generation, availability and distribution.
2. Reduce power consumption wherever possible
These two points are known to everyone and sounds simple enough. We also know these are easier said than done!
Here are some 'Wild' thoughts for the supply and distribution side:
If we travel around the place we see the varying levels of "Power problems". Here I mean power problems faced by people at large (aam admi) and not the industries.
Earlier we had telephone booths and browsing centers. We had a few places where they had large antennas where we had to go watch TV. We have similarly some places that have 24x7 power and the rest not having quality power. Unfortunately we can't go to these Power booths to use power and come back! That maybe one of the solutions in the rural areas where they have small areas marked as places where power would be available and provide for all the facilities for entertainment and studies there. I agree that a farmer may be more interested in getting power for his pump sets but again I am trying to focus one step at a time.
Expanding on our earlier thought, before the dawn of the wireless communication such as WLL phones and cellular phones the issues were similar. Before cable TV the issues were similar that there were no local network and support system. Heavy cost of setup, connecting the people with wires was next to impossible due to the terrain and the cost involved. Off course all this was expected from the government since no one else was allowed to provide these services. Thinking about it, these got solved because of the following reasons. I am listing the reasons that I feel are relevant to the Power problems as well.
1. Private people allowed to provide the last mile in case of fixed line phones.
2. Wireless communication making it possible to get over the terrain issues.
3. Allowing for cable operators to setup and wire the homes literally with messy cables running all over the place. Eventually have the option to go DTH.
4. Allowing cable operators and telecom providers to setup their own exchanges so to speak and have it localized.
The Power capacity or availability in a region is similar to the time of govt monopoly on telecom and television channels. The second one is the transmission and distribution across long distances and high maintenance costs with cables getting cut in remote places which are difficult to access.
Unfortunately today power cannot be transmitted wirelessly (that would be great right! a truly charged atmosphere!:)) but I believe we should tackle the issue by localization and local distribution. This is more so for rural areas and small towns and in urban areas focus on reducing power consumption while waiting for additional supply.
Here are some food for thought:
o I live in an apartment which has backup generator and hence impacted less by power. I can't use my microwave but I have enough lights/fans and TV running. I was thinking that it would be a good start if everyone could get to this stage.
o I see a role for the UPS folks who could or would need to involve in the quality of power and to make sure that there is uninterrupted power.
What apartments do internally should somehow be made at an area level or a block level. Many homes already use UPS to get by with some lighting. The problem is with the intensity of power cuts the batteries are not in a charged state by the time the next power cut happens!
For that we could either allow or even make it mandatory for designated places to put up generators and feed back to the local grid or even have solar farms to do the same. I knew of a person who is no more who had tried to get the power dept in one of the cities almost 10 years ago to put solar panels on the roofs and have them feed to a grid. The dept was to pay the home/building owners a fee per unit generated, the roof was provided with no rental by the home owners and the panels were to be installed by the power supply company.
Why not take these ideas forward and allow for such small outlets to either supply by directly drawing a wire or by supplying to the grid. I can already see many people saying all this is too much work! Who is going to draw the wires, who will pay for this etc.! Well I am sure that if people out there who are experts think out of the box they will find solutions. More so in smaller towns and rural areas where people have cable TV, cell phones but no lights/power. I have also read that some people have taken the initiative to provide solar powered LED lamps which is a good start but I think we should provide for full clean power to these rural households with small localised power stations which should run as much as possible on solar/wind/biogas and other natural resources and maybe augmented with generators when required. As I say these are Wild thoughts which I hope will allow for wild innovations and help if not totally eradicate the power problems at least bring everyone to a level of having lighting available round the clock. Will try to write a few thoughts on "Reducing Power consumption" sometime which should become the focus for the urban world.
How will Power problem be solved. Both the supply side and demand side has to be looked at. While the issue is ever increasing demand in urban areas it is the supply side and distribution issues in rural areas and smaller towns.
So the solution put in a simple way is to:
1. Increase Power generation, availability and distribution.
2. Reduce power consumption wherever possible
These two points are known to everyone and sounds simple enough. We also know these are easier said than done!
Here are some 'Wild' thoughts for the supply and distribution side:
- Convert all the cable operators to generating stations
- Convert the private fixed line telecom providers to power distribution points
- Use Direct-To-Home or wireless power supply!
If we travel around the place we see the varying levels of "Power problems". Here I mean power problems faced by people at large (aam admi) and not the industries.
Earlier we had telephone booths and browsing centers. We had a few places where they had large antennas where we had to go watch TV. We have similarly some places that have 24x7 power and the rest not having quality power. Unfortunately we can't go to these Power booths to use power and come back! That maybe one of the solutions in the rural areas where they have small areas marked as places where power would be available and provide for all the facilities for entertainment and studies there. I agree that a farmer may be more interested in getting power for his pump sets but again I am trying to focus one step at a time.
Expanding on our earlier thought, before the dawn of the wireless communication such as WLL phones and cellular phones the issues were similar. Before cable TV the issues were similar that there were no local network and support system. Heavy cost of setup, connecting the people with wires was next to impossible due to the terrain and the cost involved. Off course all this was expected from the government since no one else was allowed to provide these services. Thinking about it, these got solved because of the following reasons. I am listing the reasons that I feel are relevant to the Power problems as well.
1. Private people allowed to provide the last mile in case of fixed line phones.
2. Wireless communication making it possible to get over the terrain issues.
3. Allowing for cable operators to setup and wire the homes literally with messy cables running all over the place. Eventually have the option to go DTH.
4. Allowing cable operators and telecom providers to setup their own exchanges so to speak and have it localized.
The Power capacity or availability in a region is similar to the time of govt monopoly on telecom and television channels. The second one is the transmission and distribution across long distances and high maintenance costs with cables getting cut in remote places which are difficult to access.
Unfortunately today power cannot be transmitted wirelessly (that would be great right! a truly charged atmosphere!:)) but I believe we should tackle the issue by localization and local distribution. This is more so for rural areas and small towns and in urban areas focus on reducing power consumption while waiting for additional supply.
Here are some food for thought:
o I live in an apartment which has backup generator and hence impacted less by power. I can't use my microwave but I have enough lights/fans and TV running. I was thinking that it would be a good start if everyone could get to this stage.
o I see a role for the UPS folks who could or would need to involve in the quality of power and to make sure that there is uninterrupted power.
What apartments do internally should somehow be made at an area level or a block level. Many homes already use UPS to get by with some lighting. The problem is with the intensity of power cuts the batteries are not in a charged state by the time the next power cut happens!
For that we could either allow or even make it mandatory for designated places to put up generators and feed back to the local grid or even have solar farms to do the same. I knew of a person who is no more who had tried to get the power dept in one of the cities almost 10 years ago to put solar panels on the roofs and have them feed to a grid. The dept was to pay the home/building owners a fee per unit generated, the roof was provided with no rental by the home owners and the panels were to be installed by the power supply company.
Why not take these ideas forward and allow for such small outlets to either supply by directly drawing a wire or by supplying to the grid. I can already see many people saying all this is too much work! Who is going to draw the wires, who will pay for this etc.! Well I am sure that if people out there who are experts think out of the box they will find solutions. More so in smaller towns and rural areas where people have cable TV, cell phones but no lights/power. I have also read that some people have taken the initiative to provide solar powered LED lamps which is a good start but I think we should provide for full clean power to these rural households with small localised power stations which should run as much as possible on solar/wind/biogas and other natural resources and maybe augmented with generators when required. As I say these are Wild thoughts which I hope will allow for wild innovations and help if not totally eradicate the power problems at least bring everyone to a level of having lighting available round the clock. Will try to write a few thoughts on "Reducing Power consumption" sometime which should become the focus for the urban world.
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