We were invited by many corporates to conduct test drive for their staff, to initiate the Green Initiative, and corporate social responsibility. Corporates also passes on the benefit of more than a lac rupees to their employees who opts for green car, since they get 80% IT depreciation. However, we are really impressed with the mindset of housing society's Chairman, Secretary, and managing committee members. They are encouraging their members by following 3 initiatives... 1 : They encourage us to visit their society and display the notice / invitation to take a test drive of Reva so that society members can own it. Especially house wife finds it so much beneficial because there is no gear / clutch and easy to drive - automatic car is their ... View Moredream come true. 2 : Society helps us to locate the parking slot within compound, where such small cars can fit in and permits the member to park their car FREE in the compound, there by reducing the total cost of ownership to society members. When few members were curious to know, why such special status can be given, we were amazed to know their response. The Managing committee member said, "when we are planting tree in our compound, and incurring the cost of watering, and gardener salary, sweeping the leaves, just because we can have fresh oxygen at our home, the space this car occupies is much less, and it costs us much less than maintaining the trees" But hold on to point.. the discussion continued further... The next query was, tree looks good, and its for environment, its for everybody,.....Pause! The answer was doesn't this car look good? Isn't it contributing by not polluting our compound, and our city? Our tree are giving us the oxygen, but our expense to maintain the tree is also benefiting the entire city. Oxygen generated by our society is not exclusively delivered to our society members. If we are not considering our society as part of this city, or area, we do not have right to live here. And the last point made by chairman, if members think that this benefit is given to only those who owns Electric Car, let them sell their fuel driven car and buy Reva. Let the womens of our society get empowered to use vehicle that is ideal for them to commute within Mumbai city or local area. 3 : Few residents were staying on higher rise Apartments, and they needed to install charging point at their parking slot. Here also we received very encouraging response! Society co-operated with us to set up the wiring of 15Amp plug point directly from residents who stayed any where between ground to 4th Floor. The wiring was matching with building exterior paint, hence it did not distorted the elevation. At few societies, we simply took connection from the resident's meter room located on ground floor(basement), and it was secured in a box so no misuse can happen. At few societies, there were parking slots alloted to residents which were far from meter room, and the play ground was concreted. Instead of digging the ground, they proposed a novel idea. They installed a energy meter near the parking slot of resident, and gave connection from society lighting - wiring mounted on compound wall. The member paid for the initial cost, and every month they get few hundred rupees added in their society maintenance bill. This is height of co-operation we have witnessed in Mumbai co-operative societies. The member saves thousands of rupees earlier blown away in petrol bills, and one member was claiming, by owning Reva, his house became maintenance free, because of savings from monthly fuel bills. This is awesome observation we have seen, and we were convinced that co-operative society is not just a word. Its a reality. Societies are made by members, for members, of members... is live example of good social governance. Upon request of the anonymity we have not cited the names any where. But these societies truly deserves the media recognition to become role model to the rest of the world.
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