The Hindu : National : Power to the people

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 30, 2006

National

National

Power to the people

Indrani Dutta

Kolkata

Film director Mrinal Sen was the pioneer in this respect, extending a purse of Rs. 33 lakh from his MPLADS funds in 1995-96 to electrify a remote village in Bankura, West Bengal. Since then, Chittabrata Mazumdar, Basudeb Acharya and Dipankar Mukherjee, all from the Left-camp, have extended help under the MPLADS to "power" villages. Today, this has become a poll issue.

West Bengal has about 50,000 villages, of which 87 per cent are electrified, as per official statistics. Of this, the Left Front is concentrating on 2,000 remote villages, where electricity cannot be provided through the conventional route. About 30 per cent of these villages have been provided electricity through renewable energy and micro-hydel systems.

Take, for instance, the Sundarbans in the South 24 Parganas. This cluster of islands on the Bay of Bengal is separated from the mainland by a criss-cross of rivers — some so wide, that conventional power can be supplied only through an underwater cable, which makes the project unviable. Through a sustained programme, by the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA), the State Government's nodal agency for promoting alternative power, the largest of the islands, Sagar Islands, has been powered by solar units.

The poor here were resigned to a life of daytime activity, while a handful of the well-off used costly but hugely polluting diesel generators. The renewable energy units changed all that, and the rural folks say their improved standard of living is due to the Left coalition ruling the State. They say all these changes came only in the last decade.

Today, on Sagar Islands and other islets in this area, there is a flurry of economic activity much beyond sunset. Womenfolk do tailoring, batik printing and other income-generating activities in the evenings, after their household chores are over. Shops and STD booths are lit not by kerosene lamps but by solar-powered ones. Naturally, the CPI(M) candidate in the Sagar Islands, Milan Parua, and Chittaranjan Mondal of the RSP in nearby Gosaba are highlighting this.

The picture is not too different in other remote areas such as West Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia, North 24 Parganas or in Darjeeling and its hilly neighbourhoods.

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