Grace Boyle: Flickering kerosene lamps on which rest the hopes of India's poor
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Your support makes all the difference.I visited some villages in rural Karnataka this week, where people are living without electricity. After nightfall we drove to Mahime Village in Uttara Kannada, a coastal district of Karnataka State, and left the car at the side of the road. On foot we picked our way along a dirt path through the forest, splashed through a creek and uphill until we reached a house. The muted blue of the mud walls glimmered in the yellow light of the small kerosene lamps as we picked leeches off our feet and Sarojini Rama Naik, the wife of the house, burnt them with embers from the fire.
Sarojini and her husband, Rama Timma Naik, have lived here for nearly 40 years, fitting their daily schedule into the daylight hours and eating their evening meal by kerosene lamplight before going to sleep at around 8pm. The government provides everyone in the area with three litres of kerosene per month, subsidised to a rate of 10 rupees per litre, but as this isn't enough for their needs, Rama travels to Gerusoppa Town, 10km away, once a month, to pick up an extra six litres on the black market, at a higher rate.
As the express buses don't stop at their hamlet – Vatehalla – the journey takes him a whole day, on which he must set other business aside. The people in the village who do have electricity don't always need their government-issued kerosene, so he asks the ration-shopkeeper to deal him the extra. Mahime village consists of scattered hamlets, like most of the villages in this rural area, and of the 300 families the village is home to about 65 who are living without access to electricity. It's not an uncommon living arrangement, easily overlooked with the district website's claim that "all towns and villages have electricity facilities in the District".
Rama signs the yearly application letter for electricity sent by the village to the government, but only occasionally do they receive a reply informing them of the status of their application – usually a notice that it has been forwarded to X official – and there is still no power connection. About five years ago, 25-30 pylons were erected in the area but they still stand naked, devoid of power-carrying connecting cables. Rama doesn't know why.
Taken from 'Rainspotting in Bangalore', the author's Independent Minds blog, at www.independent.co.uk/rainspotting. You can start your own blog at www.independent.co.uk/blogs
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