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Global honour for barefoot wonder Bunker Roy

Honoured: Founder of Barefoot College, Tilonia, Bunker Roy in his office

JAIPUR: Bunker Roy, founder-director of the much talked-about Barefoot College at Tilonia in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district, has been chosen for this year’s Robert Hill Award for his contribution to promotion of photo-voltaics (solar energy). He is the first Indian to be recognised by the Global Solar Community which had its 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference in Hamburg, Germany, this weekend.

The award which was presented to Mr. Roy at the conference is in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the use of photo-voltaics for development. Mr. Roy was selected for the award by the members of the World Photovoltaic Community.

The award is in the name of Professor Robert Hill (1937-90) who worked on many aspects of photo-voltaics, including technical and policy issues. One of his most abiding passions was appropriate use of photo-voltaics to improve the quality of life, especially where access to electricity could transform prospects for health, comfort and prosperity.

The award is also in recognition of Mr. Roy’s innovative “barefoot approach” to solar electrification of remote, inaccessible villages all over the world. The barefoot approach has reached 25 of the Least Developed Countries in Africa, Asia and South America so far with solar electrification of nearly 30,000 houses in over 800 villages. This has led to a saving of almost 1.60 million litres of kerosene per month.

The demystified and decentralised “barefoot approach” is a bottoms-up approach that takes the poor rural communities into confidence to shoulder responsibility for solar electrification of their villages. This means getting every family to pay what they would otherwise pay for kerosene, diesel, candles and torch batteries and wood. And that comes to between $ 5 and $ 10 a month.

The jury found Mr. Roy’s approach unique in the world in identification and selection of illiterate rural mothers and grandmothers from remote, inaccessible villages in 21 countries of Africa and training them at workshops in Tilonia and elsewhere to be competent and confident solar engineers. The barefoot teachers and engineers at Tilonia carry out this feat of imparting knowledge without using the written word. Instead, they use a combination of hands, sight and sounds and by identifying parts by the colour.

The grandmothers trained in Tilonia now know how to fabricate charge controllers, invertors and solar lanterns and can carry out all major and minor repairs instantly. With this the first technically and financially self-sufficient solar electrified villages have been set up in India, Bhutan, Africa and Afghanistan.

The World Photovoltaic Community has termed this an extraordinary partnership where the community selects the women candidates and the Government of India, through the Indian Technical Economic Cooperation, pays their air fare to come to the Barefoot College in India and also the cost for the six-month training.

By the end of 2010 they will have trained 140 illiterate women and covered every poor and least developed country in the Africa.

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