Badminton superstar Saina Nehwal might have done quite a few endorsements for commercial products; but for the first time, she is going to be a brand ambassador for the Andhra Pradesh government for a public cause.
The ace shuttler is going to campaign extensively for State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM), asking the people of all sections to take up energy saving measures so as to minimize power consumption in the wake of severe power crisis staring the state.
“We had a meeting Saina and her coach Pullela Gopichand, the erstwhile badminton star, a couple of days ago and explained the objectives our energy conservation mission. We gave a power point presentation on how the state has been facing an unprecedented power crisis. We explained them how the scarcity of the natural resources like coal, gas and water have led to the present situation of acute power shortage in the state and impact of energy conservation activities,” SECM chief executive officer A Chandrasekhara Reddy told Mail Today on Sunday.
Reddy said for the last few years, there has been indiscriminate use of power by the people, causing tremendous burden on the power utilities. As a result, there has been a huge gap between the demand and supply, as high as 71 million units per day, forcing the power utilities to go in for massive power cuts.
“Though AP’s installed capacity has also reached 16,500 MW, the utilities are not able to utilise even 10,000 MW of capacity due to severe scarcity of fuel, which ultimately warrants the state to go in for energy conservation and energy efficiency measures in a big way,” he said.
The SECM officials told Saina that if everyone in the state was actively involved in this energy conservation mission, the state is estimated to save about 15,000 MU of energy, worth of Rs.7,500 crore every year.
“They were very much impressed with our mission so much that they readily agreed to be part of the programme. And Saina came forward to be a brand ambassador for the government for this mission without charging a rupee, as it is a public cause,” the officials said.
“We will utilise the services of Saina in our promotional activities through short films and other publicity programmes. She agreed to give us time for our programmes whenever she finds time,” Reddy said.
source: http://www.indiatoday.intoday.in / Home> India Today> Sports> Others Sports> Story / by A. Srinivasa Rao / Hyderabad, February 10th, 2013