How A Bengaluru-Based Resident Beat Hefty Electricity Bills While Following His Passion

Meet Prithvi Mangiri, who was once troubled by hefty electricity bills, but now Electricity Department buys electricity from him. The story of 30-year-old Prithvi Mangiri, who turned drummer from mechanical engineer has been truly exciting.

His passion for playing the drums in his residential area, landed him in the police station, as his neighbours got fed up with the sound of continuous playing of drums coming in morning and evening.

With such disturbance in his neighbourhood, Prithvi Mangiri, a Bannergatta area of ​​South Bengaluru resident, had no choice but to stop his practice. While witnessing such dedication towards playing the drums and never fulfilling it for long, Prithvi's grandfather K Rajan encouraged him and came up with a suitable idea for his grandson.  

The grandfather and grandson duo decided to make a soundproof room so that the sound does not go out, and thus Prithvi can practice his drumming session all day long. But because of the soundproofing, the temperature of the room increased, and hence air-conditioning was done to ease the heat. But when the electricity bill came, they had found that the bill was sky-high, as it increased from about Rs 1,500 to around Rs 7,000, which was four times more than what they have been receiving every month.

To ease down the hefty bills, Prithvi's grandfather K Rajan suggested an environmentally friendly alternative. Mr K Rajan says, "I told Prithvi not to be discouraged - solar energy could be an alternative".

With this initiative a new struggle had begun, the grandfather and grandson duo had decided to be a part of the solar energy program of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd.

It was now with Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company Ltd, BESCOM, to decide how many kilowatt panels to be installed, according to Prithvi Mangiri's needs. The electricity supply company granted permission to install 5 kW solar generation panels.

Now Prithvi Mangiri is happy he says, "5 KW electricity we generate every month through these panels, our need is only 2.5 to 3 KW rest we sell to BESCOM.” About two and a half years ago, Prithvi installed 15 panels on the roof at a cost of about Rs 6 lakh.

Now BESCOM buys electricity from Prithvi at the rate of Rs 7 per unit. The diligent practice to play the drums in the air-conditioned room paid off. However, even now the electricity bill comes to 6 to 7 thousand rupees a month, but a little more than this surplus electricity consumption has been sold to BESCOM, which is an excess of 400 to 600 rupees more than their bill.

With this move they have been experiencing a brief respite from the hefty electricity bills, and also a small amount of income is also being received every month.

The room where Prithvi used to practice has now taken the form of a studio named "Bread and Jam", where along with Bollywood songs, educational programs are also recorded.

Panels mounted on the roof of Prithvi Mangiri will work for 25 to 30 years. Neighbours who were pissed up with Prithvi's drum beat till yesterday, have no complaints at present.

One of the neighbours Anita Chaudhary has no complaints now, she says, "Now there is no sound, actually in those days the tenants on our first floor had a small child, who would wake up with a loud noise and then disturb everyone, that was the reason concerned to us.”