Energy Literacy in practice is a crucial turning point to achieve energy independence. An ex-IIT, Bombay professor Chetan Singh Solanki has set on a decade long journey in a fully solar-powered bus to advocate energy swaraj.
The term ‘Energy Literacy’ in spite of increasingly frequent harsh reminders by planet earth does not find much practical use.’Energy literacy’ in simple words means ‘understanding of the impacts of energy production and consumption on the environment. The conscious practice of energy literacy remains limited to a meagre number of enlightened people.
There have been repeated attempts to bring widespread awareness and practical application with little to no effect. Energy illiteracy is causing us big time with a long term negative impact on the planet and its people.
However, ‘Energy Literacy’ might not be a foreign term in the coming time because an IIT, Bombay professor Dr Chetan Sigh Solanki has set on an eleven year-long journey to make ‘Energy Literacy’ a common term and normal practice across India. Dr Solanki left his prestigious position as a professor to break every citizen from the shackle of energy dependency. He envisions ‘Energy Independency’ or ‘Energy Swaraj’ for the nation.
Dr Solanki in an exclusive interview with Hari Shanker, Managing Editor, Machine Maker explains his plan ahead for such an ambitious goal. He has set on his journey in 2020 from Madhya Pradesh in a fully solar operated bus with living facilities.
The starting point for his journey is not a random selection. Dr Solanki belongs to a very small village in Madhyapradesh. He has spent over one year or more precisely 419 days on the road traversing through different states to influence a collective momentum towards influencing energy literacy in people.
According to Dr Solanki, this 419 days of journey has brought him an understanding and a chance to create change on the ground. Although, he started his journey in the midst of the pandemic which hindered him to a certain degree. He says covid has cultivated people’s mindset to favourable direction- “We have been overusing the available earth resources without much thought to its impact in the last 3-4 decades. That is not going to see a sudden change. We need to first reduce consumption. Then only we could go towards complete disconnection from fossil energy. Due to Covid, the pace of our fast-moving life has slowed down and people are at least ready to listen to the concept of energy literacy and energy swaraj. People are at least listening to my ideas which is a great improvement”.
It is not possible to leave a lasting impression that sees real implementation on the ground at one try so he planned this decade long journey to “criss-cross throughout the country to leave the message of energy literacy and energy swaraj and get back to follow up on the further progress.”
In his mission to bring mass-energy literacy, Dr Solanki has founded Energy Swaraj Foundation with a motto, ‘Energy by locals for locals. This foundation has brought a unique initiative ‘Energy Literacy Training’ to literate people on responsible consumption of energy. This training initiative has been launched on January 14 th of this year and is being provided free of cost to people across the world.
Dr Solanki has an ambitious vision for 2022 to correct the climate crisis we are committing with our daily fossil energy usage. The ‘Energy Literacy Traing’ is set to reach 20 million people by the end of this year. By the end of his decade long journey, he planned to reach 1 billion people.
Because this energy literacy is not a lone man mission, Dr Solanki has been relentlessly advocating to bring a collaborative partnership to reach maximum people throughout his journey. Energy Swaraj Yatra is solely focused introduce energy literacy to reduce energy consumption and ultimately people surrendering their fossil fuel connection. He is advocating for CSR activity to sponsor household solar adaptation and fossil fuel energy resignation throughout his journey. His aim is to at least reach 20 crores of houses by 2022.
Dr Solanki says given the relatively favourable mindset, it can be expected 3-4 years down the line we can expect to see significant change. Let us all join Dr Solanki on his journey to a nationwide energy literacy mission.
