Lighting up the hills
by S.P. Sharma
IT is a dream come true for residents of at least 420 remote and mountainous villages in the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir, where the traditional watermills (gharats) have started generating electricity to light bulbs in the households.
The task has been accomplished by the Army under its Operation Sadbhavana. The army has identified 1000 watermills in far-flung and inaccessible areas for being converted into micro-power houses. Just a few, minor, mechanical modifications are required in these traditional mills for this purpose, that have so far only been grinding corn.
Residents of the villages where each watermill has started generating 2 to 3 kws of electricity are full of joy as they never imagined that they could have a bulb in their house. Every household was allowed to install one bulb and in certain villages the streets have also been lit.
The Hillkaka village in the forward area of the Poonch district, which was three years ago under the virtual captivity of terrorists, now has its own electricity generating watermill. Residents of the Nilgrar, Barsada and Kolale villages were thrilled to see the bulbs light up their houses.
The army had started converting these watermills into power houses just a year ago and as many as 420 villages and hamlets have been lit. The financial back up is also provided by the ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES) and under the Border Area Development Programme (BADP).
Of the 420 projects commissioned so far, 289 were under Operation Sadbhavana, 95 under the BADP and 52 supported by the MNES. The highest number of 435 projects was being supported by the MNES which has already provided a grant of Rs.8.70 crores for the purpose.
According to sources in the MNES, 100 villages in Ladakh, 550 in Kashmir and 350 in Jammu will be lit by constructing micro-power projects. The project has been taken in hand under the prime minister's reconstruction plan that provides for constructing 1000 such power houses in the remote areas of the state.
The government has now realized that the mini and micro power projects were the answer to remove darkness from the far-flung villages. The big power projects were not only time consuming, but have also failed to supply electricity to the border areas in the past 60 years.
However, red-tape in the bureaucracy continues to delay execution of the 10 mini-power projects that chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had himself cleared eight months ago.
According to a spokesman of the army, the technology kit for upgrading the watermills to perform multi-utility functions have been devised in consultation with a Dehradun based NGO. Apart from performing the traditional function of corn grinding and cotton combing, the watermill would generate 1 to 8 kilowatts of electricity and also run the lathe machine.
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