The dark corners

Banyari is the Valley’s forgotten land. Fifty-five kilometres from Srinagar,this cluster of three villages on the banks of Wular Lake has no regular water supply or road connectivity. But its biggest problem is electricity. The villages here get about five hours of power supply a day,and that too in spurts.

The long,frequent power cuts in this village have given rise to a social problem. Very few people outside the village want to send their girls in marriage to Banyari.

“We have no options. So we either marry among ourselves or get wives from outside,mostly Bengal,” says Mohammad Shaban,a villager.

“Electricity is an unpredictable guest here,” says Mohammad Jamal Dar,a singer from Banyari. “It can come anytime,go anytime”.

Disconnected from the rest of the Valley by two rivulets,Banyari is a cluster of villages accessible only by boat. The villages have about 2,000 households and a population of more than 10,000. A thin aluminum wire,propped up by the surrounding trees,brings electricity to the villages.

The villagers have learned to live without electricity. The day at Banyari ends early. As dusk falls,the villagers,who make their living fishing or digging sand from the river bed,get back to their homes. Occasionally,when luck favours them,they get a chance to watch television.

The villagers have made representations to officials

and politicians.

“Our MLA (Mohammad Akbar Lone,who is also the Speaker of the J&K Assembly) doesn’t listen to us,” says Jamal. “The politicians made promises during elections,but we haven’t seen them since.”

Life on Burmese inverters–IMPHAL,MANIPUR

ESHA ROY

August 8 was an unusual day for the residents of Top village,barely seven kilometres from Imphal city. At 6.15 p.m. in the evening,the village got power—for 15 minutes—in keeping with the state government’s promise that Manipur would be able to watch Mary Kom’s semi-final bout at the London Olympics.

An excited Loukvakpam Memcha and her daughter,Bidyalakshmi,switched on the television to watch the live telecast of the match. “This is really very unusual. We never have power at this time. I’m sure we’ll have power at night again for 15 minutes when Devendro (Singh) is fighting his match,’’ says Bidyalakshmi.

Top and several other semi-urban villages on the banks of Iril river form the periphery of Imphal city. Concrete bungalows and thatched huts are located amid lush fields.

But despite being just 20 minutes from the main city,the road to Top gets increasingly dark. And as the sun sets,the indigo blue of the evening sky turns ebony.

“We have been fortunate the last two months. We have been getting four hours of power everyday—from 9 to 11 in the morning and then again from 12.30 to 2.30 p.m. Some days,when we’re exceptionally lucky,we get electricity again from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Earlier,we would get only two hours of power a day,’’ says Memcha. “Of course,even when we do have power,everyone is using it at the same time so the voltage is very low.”

The more affluent homes in Top,like Memcha’s,have cheap Burmese inverters and generators that they use to power their lights and fans.

But not all are as fortunate as the Loukvakpams. Across the river is a field tilled by 35-year-old farmer N Ishorechand,who grows coriander,onions and some Manipuri herbs. This year has been rough for him. Like his neighbours,Ishorechand is unable to draw water from the river and pump it into his fields as there is little power. This year’s less-than-normal rainfall has hit his produce. “I haven’t produced as much as I do in other years. I don’t grow paddy,the paddy farmers are the worst affected. It’s impossible to irrigate our fields without electricity,’’ he says.

Near Ishorechand’s farm is an Airtel tower,with a loudly whirring generator at its base. Residents say that on days when the diesel in the generator runs out,they have no mobile connectivity at all.

L Ramananda Singh is a scientist at the Manipur Remote Sensing Application Centre in Imphal. He also owns a paddy field in Top.

“Despite being so close to the city,we have little power. Imagine what it must be like in the hills. At least we get several hours of power a day. The villages in the hills have no electricity for days,’’ says Singh.

Singh says the power situation has stalled Manipur’s growth. “There are large reserves of very good chromite as well as lime in Manipur. But these can’t be mined. Where is the power to set up industries?’’ he says.

Weaving in the dark–Godda,JHARKHAND

Deepu Sebastian Edmond

Line is what they call it in Godda. “Let the line come,” says the receptionist when reminded that the air-conditioner in the hotel room does not work. “It will,when the line comes,” he says later about the television too.

Godda’s ‘line’ is the humble electricity.

Godda district,located in the northeast of Jharkhand,borders Bihar’s Bhagalpur. Godda town is the administrative headquarters of the district,whose website is quite unflattering in its description: “In the absence of basic infrastructure,the district is still undeveloped… Although the district has coal mines on large scale,still it is one of the least industrialised districts of the state.”

“Yesterday? Did you ask if we had electricity yesterday? We should be talking in terms of months when it comes to electricity,” says Mohammad Maffizuddin Ansari of Murgabani village,27 km from Godda town. He does not remember when the village last had electricity.

The Muslim-dominated Murgabani is home to weavers. Power looms are not an option,and though a naked light bulb hangs above Mursheed Ansari’s handloom,it is a mere decoration. “All work stops at sunset here. We make up by starting early in the morning,” he says.

People in Godda have built their lives around this wait for power. Enterprising shopkeepers in the area charge Rs 5 to charge a mobile phone for an hour. “TV is a source of surprise entertainment for women and children here,” says Mustaqim Ansari of Fasiya village,where weavers operate about 40 power looms.

“It is not such a big problem. Power comes,power goes,” says Mahagama’s Block Development Officer Neeraj Sinha. As the lights go out,Sinha switches on a powerful LED flashlight kept on the table.

Also affected is Jharcraft,the Jharkhand Silk Textile and Handicraft Development Corporation,which is under the state’s industry department. It has successfully organised the weavers of the district into clusters that produce cotton and silk garments.

For Jharcraft,the unavailability of electricity cuts both ways—while the darkness prevents its weavers from working at night,it is also a makeweight in its attempts to revive handlooms in the area. Jharcraft,which uses only handloom-woven material,has installed 28 looms in Fasiya.

Some villagers turn adversity into opportunity. “What’s light to me? So long as someone explains the designs and loads the thread into the loom,I’m fine,day or night,” says Tahir Miyan. He is blind,the result of an accident a few years ago.

While a district gropes in the eerie dark of silenced television sets and mobile phones,Miyan’s loom chatters.

Where the power department runs on generators–FAIZABAD,uttar pradesh

SANJAY SINGH

At the office of the Power Distribution Division-1 (PDD-1) in Faizabad’s posh Civil Lines area,an old generator rumbles into action every time there is an outage. The power department,which pays a rent of Rs 10,000 a month for the generator,spends Rs 300-400 a day on diesel.

When the power department itself has to rely on a generator for daily operations,life can’t be any easier for the common people.

“Never in the past one-and-a-half years have we got electricity for more than 13 hours a day. While the Mayawati government had a fixed time for power cuts,now it can go any time,” says Anita Saxena,a homemaker who lives in the Rakabganj area.

Gaurav Tiwari is shopping for a solar lamp in Faizabad’s Chowk Market. “I am entitled to get five litres of kerosene a month through PDS. But it’s never enough since power cuts last several hours,” says Tiwari.

Ram Yash,a manager at the Food Corporation of India,says even during “lucky” nights when there are no power cuts,the voltage is so low that fans don’t work fast enough. His family sleeps on the roof. At his office,they pay Rs 13,000 a month for the generator. “We can’t work without a generator. We have 22 computers. We are supposed to send regular reports to our Delhi head office on wheat procurement,” he says.

The power crisis should mean good business for sellers of inverters,but Gautam Dhawan,owner of Gautam Auto Sales,isn’t smiling. He says inverters are in demand only in urban areas. In villages,there isn’t enough electricity to charge inverters.

Industry sputters–LUDHIANA,punjab

Raakhi Jagga

Time: 10.30 a.m. Venue: Metro Auto India,Janta Nagar,Ludhiana. Four workers are playing ludo. A few have gone out for a stroll. An unscheduled power cut imposed by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited has brought the unit,which makes hub axles,to a halt. It cannot afford a generator set,so work simply stops.

Ramesh Kumar,a foreman,says,“Before the paddy season,we used to make 6,500 pieces of hub axle. These days,we make only 2,000. We get paid by the hour. So we work till late night so that we can put in at least six hours and take home a decent amount.”

Harpal Singh Bhanwar,president of Janta Nagar Welfare Association,says,“Small-scale units make up about 65 per cent of Janta Nagar. And then there are houses. We have at least 10 hours of power cuts.” Bhanwar spends Rs 40,000 a month on the diesel for the generator at his factory.

Jaspreet Kular,a homemaker,says,“We spend Rs 700 a day on diesel to run the generator. This pinches us,but we have no choice.”

Anil Verma,Distribution Director,PSPCL,admits the power cuts are a major problem. “Scanty rainfall is the major reason,and we have to bear the farm load too. We cannot draw more than 5,100 MVA from the grid even if we have more money to buy.”

Ruling party councillor Jagbir Singh Sokhi is shifting his sewing machine factory from Janta Nagar to Doburji village. There are power cuts in Doburji too,but at least they are scheduled,he says.