IE : At Mumbai's doorsteps, nine villages live in the dark : Nov 5,2007 | Rural Development : News Articles

IE : At Mumbai's doorsteps, nine villages live in the dark : Nov 5,2007

PAGE1 ANCHOR - At Mumbai's doorsteps, nine villages live in the dark
In third-most industrialised district of Maharashtra, villagers living on forest land are still waiting for electricity to light up lives
SHWETA DESAI
MUMBAI, NOVEMBER 4

RAGHO Gopa Malkar, 70, has a vague idea of what electricity can do. "There is a stick, like this," he points to a tubelight-sized bamboo stick, "which gives out light". He saw it when he was younger, in other villages where he would go looking for work and be awed by the wires running along tall poles. In his own Adivasi village that's less than a threehour drive from Mumbai, electrification remains a distant dream.

Malkar is the seniormost resident of Ujjaini, a village 24 km off Wada in Thane, Maharashtra's third most industrialised district.

As the state passes through its worst-ever power crisis, with five- to 10-hour loadshedding in rural areas, Ujjaini is one of nine tribal villages not fazed in the least. For, Ujjaini, Akhada, Vire, Satronde, Wadavli, Khodade, Fanasgaon, Tilmaal and Pachghar have never seen power. The reason, according to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), is that these villages are located on reserved forest land.

Three years ago, 28 houses were gutted in Ujjaini when a straw hut caught fire from a kerosene lamp. "Had there been electricity, this incident would have never happened," says Vasant Malkar, a villager. The houses were rebuilt with the help of some contributions from politicians, but electricity never came.

Publication : IE; Section : Front; Pg : 1; Date : 5/11/07

URL : http://70.86.150.130/indianexpress/ArticleText.aspx?article=05_11_2007_641_006