While we are still blaming about power cut for 20 minutes, there is a village in Chattisgarh that is still waiting for electricity even after 72 years of Independence and still, the senior authorities haven’t done anything to sort this problem.
Just think about people’s fate of living in the dark. It’s really sad. We thought whole India is electrified but that’s not true. There are still villages that lack electricity, important facilities in the vicinity.
“It has been 70 years since independence but we are still living in the dark,” says a resident of the Trishuli village.
Since India’s independence, the electricity has still not reached around 100 homes of this village.
“Without electricity, at night we feel threatened by the scorpions, snakes and other insects,” said Sukbi, another villager.
In September 2017, PM Modi announced electrification of all homes under the Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana ‘Saubhagya’, striving to provide power for everyone across the country.
The Government of India had also stated that out of 18,452 villages that were power deprived 3 years ago, 17,181 have been electrified and other states are uninhabited or categorised as grazing reserves.
It was already promised that all villages had been electrified before the March 2019 deadline, but the scenario is totally different.
While the villagers have given countless complaints to the authorities in the form of written letters demanding electricity supply but there has been no right solution to the problem.
“Since my birth, I have not seen electricity in this village. Politicians come here at the time of elections. They are not willing to do anything for the development here,” said a 70-year-old villager.
“Our children can’t study after sun sets due to lack of electricity. We have written to the collector.”
The collector of the district notified that the electricity will be provided to the villagers soon but people are only waiting.
“With that too, they face issues as there is not enough supply of kerosene in the region. They then burn woods for the light,” Rameshwar Pal who lives in Trishuli, told news agency ANI.
While we are thinking that this village has only been facing electricity problem, they have water scarcity as well.
With severe water shortage in the region, villagers have no other option but to make use of water from a pond which is also used by animals in the region and also the water that they consume is not fit for drinking.
These people in Trishuli village still feel like they are living in the British colonial era where Indians were treated as slaves.