Electricity is one of the greatest wonders of science. It is a gift to mankind. It has changed our lives. It has relieved us from hard labour.
Modern society is completely dependent on electricity. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it has become the backbone to development today. It is one of the essentials required to sustain modern urban life particularly.
Modern age is an age of electricity. Life comes to a standstill when there is power cut even for a short time. We have electric telegraph, electric tram, electric bulb, electric train, and electroplating, electric fan, electric stove, all of which have made our lives easier and comfortable. We have become used to all these things. These are no longer considered the wonders of science. We cannot imagine a life without them.
Electricity has changed the way of farming. In fact it has mechanised farming. It has enabled us to distribute the water of the rivers into canals and irrigate dry and barren lands. The Bhakra Dam in Punjab, the Hirakund Project in Orissa, the Damodar Valley in West Bengal, etc. owe their existence to electricity. Electricity is widely used in cutting and chaffing of crops. Tube wells work with electricity.
Electricity has tremendously helped in fast communication. We make use of wireless telegraphy with electricity. Immediate contact with anyone anywhere is no longer a challenge. We use radio, television, cinema, cooler, heater, washing machine, which all depend on electricity. We cannot think of life without them. These things are of no use without electricity. There is no glamour and splendor in festivities and celebrations without electricity.
Electricity has brought revolution in the field of medical science. Cancer, leprosy and many other fatal diseases are cured by painless method of exposure to electricity. X-rays and electric shocks are boon to surgery.
Electricity has significant role in industrial development. It is one of basic requirements for industrial development. Without electricity we cannot imagine industrial growth. Small-scale industries depend on electricity. Electricity has removed darkness from our roads and streets.
Electricity is a boon of science to modern society. Our life will slip back to primitive age without electricity. So we should be very judicious in the use of electricity. We should not waste it. Alternative means of electricity should be looked for to bridge the gap of its demand and supply.
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The greatest scientific achievement of the nineteenth century is the discovery of electricity. The twentieth century is making use of electricity so extensively that it has almost changed the face of the earth. "Electricity—carrier of light and power, devourer of time and space, bearer of human speech over land and sea, is the greatest servant of man, though it is itself unknown.
Lenin saw Russia's hydro-electrical potentialities. The application of electricity to industry and agriculture was Lenin's dream. In India, we have staked our whole future on a rapid growth of our hydroelectric power.
The modern age is the age of machinery. The true object of substituting human labour by mechanical labour is to find greater leisure for man. Machines must be driven by natural power. And the most pervasive of all sources of natural power is electricity, mechanical, hydro wind followed by electronics now-a-days.
Look at life today in a modern city. Electricity regulates the clock that rouses us from bed; boils the water that makes our tea, cooks our food on heat-proof cooking ranges or cookers; works the radio and TV that tell us the news; rings the bell that announces a visitor; carries our telegraphic message to distant places; conveys us to our office in luxurious tram-cars and trains; takes us to our room somewhere in some multi-stroied building on elevators; electricity lifts; refrigerates the food to keep it completely fresh; lights our rooms when the sun goes down; warms it in winter and cools it in summer; in short, does everything for our comfort and convenience with the utmost efficiency at all hours.
To generate and harness electricity on a large scale means the development of machinery capable of doing so. The various multipurpose schemes, which we are running at such a heavy cost over the years, are for the production of large-scale electricity.
But most of our electricity was based on coal: the total output was lamentably low. Now that such multipurpose schemes as those of Bhakra Nangal, Damodar Valley or Hirakud have made it possible to provide to even remote villages with electric powers, and help change life beyond recognition. India's resources for generating electricity are second to no other country in the world. Even some Atomic plants have generating electricity.
