Jumbos scare a bygone in J'khand village post electrification

Birgaon (Jharkhand): Having lived in fear of wild elephants for decades, inhabitants of this tiny hamlet under Gumla district feel a lot safer on Friday, thanks to electrification.

Due to solar street lights in Birgaon village, now the elephants no more enter and ransack the houses in search of food, say inhabitants.

"Ever since we got electricity in our houses in December last year, there has not been a single case of elephant trespassing into this village," Sunda Munda, an inhabitant of Birgaon said.

Birgaon is among 11 other villages in Jharkhand which have been electrified by Azure Power- an independent solar service provider.

The company has set up a mini grid of 6 KW in the village, which has a population of over 100 people. The grid provides per household power to run 3 LED bulbs. Besides, each household has access to two power sockets.

Birgaon now has access to power supply for 14 hours, said Bikas Kumar, Deputy Manager (Infra) Azure Power.

In a tender floated by Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency last year, Azure Power won a project to electrify 320 households across 11 villages in Gumla and Hazaribagh districts of the state.

Besides providing security to the villagers, the electricity has brought down the consumption of kerosene oil to almost nil.

"Now I no more buy kerosene to burn lamps, so I save around Rs 200 every month," Navita Munda, another villager of Birgaon said.

The villagers have all the more reasons to cherish now as they don't have to walk down to the neighbouring village, almost 4-km away, to buy kerosene.

Munda said children of the village are the happier lot now as they can study during night as well.

Srisai Kawar- a 35-year-old resident of the village- takes pride when he says that he has given away his land to the company to set up the grid so that his fellow villagers could get light.

The electricity has brought a new ray of hope in the life of school goer Dahari Kawal as she aspires to be a teacher.

She has more reasons to go to school now as in the whole village her classroom is the only place to have a fan.

But all this did not come easy for Azure Power as it had to face several challenges.

"Most of the villages allocated to us were in very remote areas...it was time consuming to locate the villages. Language barrier, road connectivity and difficult terrain added to the challenges," Samitla Subba, Head- Marketing and Communications, Azure Power said.

"One of the main problems with last mile connectivity is the infrastructure connectivity. Most of these villages are not connected by proper roads and for some of the villages, the terrain was extremely difficult," she said. pti