In India, 12,000 villages are living in the dark after sunset, untouched from the developed world. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India(GoI), has launched a Village Energy Security Programme (VESP) for these un-electrified villages. Though the objective of this programme has been achieved in a few pilot villages, the benefit is yet to reach countless others.

Radhapur is one among such un-electrified villages. Radhapur comes under Pichor Block of Shivpuri district (MP). Over 454 people from 84 households of Radhapur stay in the dark with the hope that some day, some Government scheme will remove the darkness of their homes. Ever-rising prices of diesel are steadily weakening their farm-based economy. In association with Development Alternatives (DA), the villagers took an initiative to demonstrate a socio-economic development model named ‘Energy Services Approach to Economic Development and Sustainable Livelihoods’. During the early participatory planning processes, both community and DA professionals realised the need of the Community Owned Community Operated (COCO) model, as an integral component of this initiative. Without building and nurturing a need-based community institution for this purpose, it is difficult to achieve the goal of socio-economic development through energy services.

In this project funded by the Department of Science and Technology, a 10 KVA biomass gasifier system is proposed to be commissioned. It was decided to form a Village Energy Committee (VEC) to operate and manage the above said model. To ensure participation and involvement of the community, including the youth, farmers, etc., different unrelated and small-scale activities were undertaken, such as ensuring the availability of newspapers; formation of teams and conducting cricket matches (VEC Vs DA team); Van Mahotsav; visits to nearby villages to understand their sprinkler systems, drip irrigation and other agricultural practices. As an impact of the above-mentioned stimulating activities, VEC members along with several other villagers visited DA’s technology demonstration centre (TARAgram, Orchha) at their own expense, particularly to see how biomass gasifiers generate electricity using weeds as fuel and what are the best possible energy driven enterprises they can adopt to make the optimum use of locally generated electricity and other local resources/products.

The DA team provided help in VEC formation and necessary assistance to open their bank accounts. Several natural leaders are now coming out as an indicator of community mobilisation. In one instant, one individual has legally donated a small piece of his land to the VEC, which has proved to be necessary for the power plant. We have miles to go to demonstrate the economic benefit of the decentralised energy services and its replication. We are confident that with timely guidance, this committee (VEC) will be able to ensure their socio-economic development. q 

Santosh Kumar Gupta
skgupta@devalt.org