MUMBAI: Kalpana Kirkire (35), who lives in a village barely four hours from Mumbai, will be the first woman in the family who will not have to spend two hours to fetch drinking water four times a day.

No woman in the Kirkire family that lives in Haidoli village, Jawhar taluka, had such a privilege. For generations they have carried water on their head from a well one-and-a-half km away from home. Her four children will also be the first in the family who do not have to depend on daylight for their studies. Snake bites in the village, says Kirkire, have also gone down remarkably. The drastic changes in their lives came due to an independent electricity system operated on solar energy, which is the result of the efforts of over 1,000 villagers who were backed by an NGO and a bank.

Even as the world heritage site of Elephanta continues to struggle for 24x7 electricity, around 200 families in seven villages in a tribal district of Palghar barely four-and-a-half hours from Mumbai, brought electricity into their homes for the first time since Independence, with a community solar system. The villagers themselves worked to set up seven 12kv power houses, their batteries, distribution points, wires and streetlights over a period of seven months and saved nearly Rs 50,000 in labour charges for installation. The system was commissioned in the first week of June this year.

Electricity has not only lit up these remote villages but brought them other small pleasures as well. The villages, which have their own power supply — a solar power plant with a sub-station, distribution points, switches, electrical fittings, streetlights and meters for billing—now have gadgets like televisions and refrigerators for the first time. Dhakal Baraf and Madhukar Bhoye from Nawapada and Manmohadi villages have opened cold drink kiosks in their shops selling articles of daily use, as they have bought refrigerators for the first time. Like Kirkire, they too pointed out that snake bites had declined remarkably due to the streetlights.

“One person from each family spent seven months of labour to commission power supply from June 3. After having lights, fans and televisions, soon they will get submersible solar water pumps and flour mills, helping women save some time and energy to be with their children,” said Sunanda Patwardhan of Pragati Pratishthan, an NGO that has helped nearly 200 remote villages in the district getting schools, medication and power supply.

Interestingly, their power supply system has a tariff of Rs 10 per unit, higher than even big suppliers like MSEDCL, Tata Power, Reliance and BEST. But due to their small electricity requirement, the monthly bill of an average household ranges from Rs 80 to a maximum of Rs 200. “Villagers can pay the bills as most men from the villages spend eight months a year in neighbouring urban areas or talukas working on construction sites. Money collected through bills is required to replace the costly solar batteries every year. Seven 12kv power houses have been built in each village by spending Rs 1.47 crore, funded by ICICI Bank under its corporate social responsibility scheme,” said Laxman Doke, who organised villagers for the job.

“The Pratishthan has helped 210 villages with solar lighting, but this system has come up in very remotest villages. Another 150 villages are yet to get electricity in this district in talukas such as Dahanu and Vikramgad, as MSEDCL or other power suppliers have not reached here,” said Satyendra Kalkar, who is associated with the Pratishthan. He said the NGO has so far fitted solar water pumps in 33 villages over the last five years and all of them were working 24x7 without any disturbance even in the monsoon.

