IND/11/062 - Providing solar energy for lighting households and enhancing income generation

Objective: To provide electricity to a village covering 48 households using solar power (renewable and non-conventional)

Background: The project will be implemented in a tribal village named “SUNDARPUR” in the Chandaka Gram Panchayat of Khurda district of Odisha, India. It is a secluded village on the border of Chnadaka elephant sanctuary, which is 20 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar. The village is made up of around 48 households, who are native to the place and belong to the tribal community. The villagers are poor and have no alternate source of energy for lighting. The villagers have no source of electric power, nor is the situation likely to change in near future. It is proposed to provide electricity to the village with the installation of a solar power supply system and solar street lighting. This will benefit the women of the households who have no light during the evening to do their housework. It will also enable two women’s self-help groups to meet in the evening, which may help in income-generation. The young school-going student will have enough light to do their homework during evening. The solar street lighting will benefit all the villagers as it will (hopefully) prevent wildlife entering to the village during the night. It should also reduce the use of kerosene (fossil fuels) by villagers during night /evening time and save cutting of trees from the elephant sanctuary (used to build fires in the evening to scare off wild animals).

Use of Funds: Funds will be used to purchase solar lamps for individual households, solar street lights for illuminating the village street, training and village awareness meetings on use, repair and maintenance. Twenty beneficiaries (10 men, 10 women) will receive training, and will continue to be responsible for the good functioning and maintenance of the equipment. The beneficiaries will contribute to the repair and maintenance costs of the equipment (individual solar lamps and solar street lights for village streets), will clean the solar PV plates and repair the batteries of the same with their own labour and financial contribution. The supplier will instal the equipment free of charge. Each household will contribute approximately Rs 15/- per month towards the running costs. NYDHEE will contribute to any unforeseen expenses.

Beneficiaries: 146