Villages in India have electricity but millions still live in darkness
NEW DELHI: For the past few months, the villagers of Leisang watched little dots of light appear on their mountain at night and wondered when it would be their turn to finally switch from kerosene lamps to electric lightbulbs.
Then, one day, porters from the town below arrived hauling poles, wires and other materials for electrification. By Wednesday, all 14 households in the village had lightbulbs installed.
Around 6pm, the entire village turned them on together, and, for the first time in history, Leisang experienced electricity.
The electrification of Leisang, in the eastern state of Manipur, marked a landmark moment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s programme to bring light to every one of India’s villages.
“Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be changed forever,” Modi tweeted Sunday. “I am delighted that every single village of India now has electricity.”
When Modi came to power, 300 million people in India lived by candlelight.
Electrification has been on government agendas since the country’s independence from colonial rule, but it has run into hurdles, especially because of the huge logistical challenges of bringing electricity to faraway settlements in difficult terrain.
In the past three years, air force pilots and helicopters were enlisted to deliver materials in some remote regions; in other places, people crossed dangerous rope-bridges and rivers bearing materials on their heads.
The task, however, is far from complete, said Arunabha Ghosh, chief executive officer of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.
Government data shows that only eight per cent of villages in India are completely electrified and that many villages experience hours of power cuts every day.
“The government’s definition of ‘electrified’ is very limited,” Ghosh said.
“What it means is there are now wires from power plants to every village. It doesn’t mean that there are electrons flowing through those wires.”
The next challenge for the government will be to install electrical connections to about 30 million homes that are still off the grid, Ghosh said, and Modi’s promise that this will be completed by April 2019 will require a tenfold increase in the rate at which connections are being set up.
Then, steps will need to be taken to ensure that the supply of electricity is regular and cheap.
Local newspapers have reported that villages scattered throughout the country are still unelectrified. “This is such a big job, it’s possible there are one or two or three mistakes,” said Arun Kumar Verma, joint secretary at the Ministry of Power.
But the government’s electrification programme - budgeted at around US$ 11 billion ( RM42 billion) - has substantially transformed people’s lives, he said and brought many near medieval villages into the modern age.