Aroad inaugurated by PM A.B. Vajpayee brought this Jharkhand village — which is 3,310 km from the capital Ranchi — closer to the outside world. Yet, it could not help villagers reach the PM with their 17-year-old plea for electricity. While the February 1 visit made available to Dubalia a 6 km road, connecting it to the National Highway the government’s plans of rural electrification are yet to see the light of day. As a result, Dubalia shares the fate of 25,116 other villages in the state and slips into darkness every evening, notwithstanding the two dozen electricity poles put up by the erstwhile Bihar government way back in 1987 under Rural Electrification Programme. Dubalia resident Sandip Oraon says: ‘‘With electricity, we can utilise pump to irrigate the land and reap two-three crops every year.’’ Sandip and his fellow tribals have been demanding electricity for the past 17 years; they’ve held demonstrations and blocked traffic. They were there, with placards demanding power, even when Vajpayee was inaugurating the road. The state Energy department has brought out a booklet, Bringing lights to life, which says: ‘‘The work of establishing 52 power sub stations to ensure power supply in rural areas is in progress.(It) aims at electrifying 5,000 villages by the end of the financial year. In addition to this, by November 2003, 568 villages had been connected to power grid by the department.’’ In addition, a two-page document prepared by the same department and made available to Vajpayee for his states: • Jharkhand has 29 per cent of the non-electrified villages in the country. The number of electrified villages is 5,108. • As many as 10 power projects planned by both public and private companies envisaging a total investment of Rs 34,300 crore have been approved in the past three years. Asked when villages like Dubalia will get power, Energy Secretary Sudhir Prasad said: ‘‘We hope to electrify every village by 2007.’’
