Whose brief the CM holds?

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has suddenly woken up to the fact that the CFL bulbs that she and her government have been promoting for the past two years can prove quite an environment hazard. Her statement last Sunday is self-explanatory: “I was told that mass use of CFL could pose environmental hazards in the long run as they contain mercury. So we must find an alternative.” What she didn’t say hold the key to what a good government should have done. One, she didn’t explain why she ignored presence of mercury in CFL bulbs then; two, she didn’t say what she did to ensure safe disposal of mercury and three, why she went full throttle promoting CFL bulbs without giving the matter a proper thought. Had she paused and deliberated before promoting CFL bulbs, she would not have been sorry. The worst part is she is rushing again into adopting another technology to replace CFL about which she and people in general know little: Light-emitting Diodes or LEDs, for short. While denouncing CFL, the Chief Minister declared that her government has already entered into an agreement to promote LED technology and that soon 100 buildings would be retro-fitted with LED bulbs. But she didn’t explain why she opted for LED, if one were to ignore her concern about mercury content of CFL bulbs. Is LED environmentally safer than CFL? Has there been any study or experiment to find out if it posed any health hazard to humans or to the environment in any way? Will there be any problem in disposing off these bulbs? Will there be any standard set or a regulatory body to ensure power quality of the appliance? We don’t know and the Delhi Chief Minister didn’t bother to explain. Just as she ignored the presence of mercury while promoting CFL, she has ignored concerns such as high-energy visible light that LED emits and its adverse impact on eye-sight. In fact, we should consider ourselves be lucky if LED turns out to be energy efficient as well as healthy, never mind that it is several times costlier than CFL. Yes, you read that right, we should consider ourselves LUCKY. For, the Chief Minister seems to work as promoter of a commercial product in the present case, rather than head of a government working for a better tomorrow.