Air conditioners help increase productivity but expanding its coverage too quickly also damages the environment. Read more at straitstimes.com.
NEW DELHI – Summer in India has always been hot. Increasingly, it’s testing the limits of human survival. As temperatures have climbed across the world’s most populous nation in recent weeks, more than a dozen people died at an event in central India and thousands crowded hospitals with heatstroke symptoms. Hundreds of schools were closed and the mercury is still rising: Temperatures will hover around 45 deg C across the northern plains this weekend.
This development has far-reaching consequences for public health, wellbeing and economic growth. Purchasing an AC is a pivot away from poverty for individuals and for their communities. People in hotter countries, which also tend to be poorer ones, suffer from worse sleep and impaired cognitive performance, both of which drag on productivity and output.
Wealthier, more temperate countries have tightened regulations on ACs, requiring better energy efficiency and less-toxic coolants. That adds to the cost of units, making those kinds of measures less palatable where affordability is paramount.
Ms Haldar, 27, avoids turning on the unit during the day. But as night falls, she flips on the switch and closes the door, keeping the mosquitoes out and preserving the cool air. In a windowless bedroom decorated with teddy bears and toys, her son, Yasir, pushed his face against the AC, delighting in the “cold chilled air!”
Ms Haldar chose a three-star unit from Voltas, which cost about 27,000 rupees , or roughly 15 per cent less than comparable higher efficiency options. Three-star units comprise about 60 per cent of total AC sales at Godrej Appliances, one of India’s largest retailers, said business head Kamal Nandi. One way to encourage consumers to buy more efficient models, the company says, would be to lower taxes on the units to 18 per cent, down from the 28 per cent luxury tariff that currently applies.
“If you don’t have a green refrigerant, you are going to be the loser,” said Jawa, the chief executive of Daikin India, which became a billion-dollar company last financial year and expects to double that number within three more.
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