Shillong, Jan 31 : With an aim to provide light to the hundreds of households in the state that are still languishing in the dark, the Meghalaya government has embarked on an ambitious sustainable power project, aptly coined Light a Billion Lives (LaBL), to provide light generated by solar energy to houses at Mawsynram and adjoining villages in East Khasi Hills district.
Meghalaya is the second state in the northeast after Assam to implement such an unique project aimed at providing escape from perpetual darkness.
The project is especially directed to help students who find it difficult to carry on with studies after sunset. Notably, students in rural Meghalaya often shoulder various responsibilities such as household chores, tending to their farms and cattle and hence night time is the only period available to them for studies.
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is spearheading the project in order to cater to the power requirements of this once power-surplus state. "This project is aimed at providing solar light to villages in rural areas as an alternative source of energy. The LaBL project has been handed over to three multi-purpose cooperative societies which will run and manage it expeditiously to ensure that people are benefited from it," said an official associated with implementation of the project on Saturday.
Meghalaya's registrar of cooperative societies FR Kharkongor said, "The project involves setting up of a solar charging station (SCS) at the cooperative society level, with five cost effective and easily installable solar photo-voltaic cell panels and 50 solar lanterns. One panel can support ten lanterns and each lantern can effectively provide eight hours of recorded light though they have been known to last a little longer."
"This is not only an effective way of helping rural areas with energy needs but also providing a way to cooperative societies to augment their revenue generation capacity," added Kharkongor.
"In Mawsynram, the Mawlyngbna multi-purpose cooperative society levies a charge of Rs 5 a day as rent for one lantern. The revenue model is left to the societies to work out as they have total charge of the units," he further said.
Chairman of Mawlyngbna multi-purpose cooperative society, Lurshai Tohtih said, "The demand for solar lanterns for both domestic and commercial purposes in the area is very high and it would only increase in the rainy season in view of people facing acute electricity shortage." The government has also decided to extend the project to other parts of the state so that eventually rural areas in the state that are not electrified yet would be provided with power.
The registrar of cooperative societies in collaboration with TERI and the Bethany Society, a Shillong-based NGO would soon begin implementing the project in the southern slopes of the War Jaintia area of Jaintia Hills district. Here again, the project would be managed by two other cooperative societies.
The entire package is worth Rs 1.45 lakh. While Rs 95,000 has been borne by TERI, Rs 25,000 was contributed by the Meghalaya Cooperative Society and Rs 25,000 each by the three other cooperative societies.
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