By IANS,
Chennai : The Madras High Court Wednesday suggested austerity measures to conserve electricity by eschewing political extravaganzas.
The first bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice A.K. Ganguly and Ibrahim Khalifullah directed the Tamil Nadu government to implement its existing orders strictly to ensure stoppage of wasteful consumption of electricity and suggested promulgation of a fresh ordinance to enforce stringent measures.
Hearing a case filed in public interest by Vaseekaran, the court ordered the government to publicise austerity measures through the mass media.
The bench directed the government to respond within four weeks.
The petitioner alleged the power situation was worsening in Tamil Nadu due to splurging of power on political functions while unscheduled eight-hour outages in several parts of the state caused hardships to the general public.
The bench, however, took note of the government’s submission that theft of electricity was being tackled on a war footing.