In Kotra block of Udaipur District, which is nearly 120kms from the city of Udaipur, access to electricity remained challenge for a long time. The block consists of 262 revenue villages and 31 panchayats. Around 95% of the population are tribal. It is the most deprived area of the district in terms of health, education, livelihoods, awareness of government schemes and energy access due to its remoteness, highly scattered settlements and hilly terrain. Due to these conditions the government has been unable to provide electric supply to each household/village in the block.

All these factors led Boond to choose Kotra block as the site for their project, to provide access of energy to them through our Solar Home Lighting System (SHLS). The project was initiated in 2017.

BOOND Engineering & Development Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2010 to provide new solutions in alternative energy technology and currently works across 11 states in India. Their USP is providing appropriate and customized solar solutions across the spectrum of communities, sectors and geographies.

The main objective of the project named Energy Access Program (Solar Home Lighting System) was to provide basic energy access through solar home lighting system to the rural community who are deprived of it.

As per the baseline study done by Boond, which was conducted survey in 40 most interior villages where grid supply has not reached, none of the villages had access to electricity. Prior the intervention by Boond, they were using kerosene, firewood and candles for light at night. Due to absence of electricity, women had to cook food before dusk. Cases of snake bite and attack by wild animals were very common and death due to it was recurrent. Children also had the difficulty of not being able to study in the evening. 

^{Masru proudly showcasing the solar panel atop his house}

Till now the project have reached 410 households. Most of the beneficiaries belong to the tribal population who works as daily wage labourer, migrant labour workers, who work in mines and agricultural land etc. The main agenda of the project was to cover the remotest households first.

Boond got the basic needs of the community and general idea of the construction of houses (number of rooms, porch, kitchen etc.), following which they designed a small affordable unit called solar home lighting system with battery capacity of 40Ah, panel of 40W, mobile charger and luminaries also with focus on backup of 3 day @4hours per day.

Boond also contacted the local grassroot organization who closely work with the community to facilitate faster implementation and ensure they have the trust of the community. They first evaluated demand from individual households as well as other basic information like paying capacity and then they installed the system in the premise of the beneficiary and set small monthly instalments. The monthly installments were same as the beneficiaries’ monthly expense on lighting before Solar home lightning system. The recovery period is usually 24 months.

To be able to provide electricity to 400 households in just one year, the SHLS program managed to bring impactful change in the life of their beneficiaries. Now they have the comfort of light at night which is the most satisfying change, women can cook even after sunset which gives them an extra hour of work and children can study in the night which improves their class participation and school enrolment. Also instances of animal attack has reduced considerably. Apart from that the beneficiaries now can charge their mobile phone at their own home and don’t need to go 20 kms away which in a result saves lot of their time and energy. Mrs. Napi Bai from the village of Dehari Medi of Kotra block mentioned that “Earlier people were born in the dark and died in the dark but now neither I nor my children will die in dark”.

As the change is visible and impactful, beneficiaries are spreading this information through word of mouth with their relatives and other villagers. This will result in more people coming forward to participate in the program. We all know that the possibility of providing grid electricity by government to these remote and scattered places is nearly nil due to high installation cost and maintenance cost compared to very low number of beneficiaries. Moreover, forest laws are very stringent in terms of green cover and animal protection which comes in the way of establishing grid connections. So, in the long run this viable and long-term solution for the beneficiaries to have access to electricity by the solar home lightning system.

A senior management of Boond mentioned that “BOOND is committed to provide last mile connectivity to the most deprived and underprivileged community in the areas where we are present. We are working to expand our area and horizon of work, so that we can intervene with our core expertise in technology, innovation, doorstep reliable service to bring positive intervention in economic activities of these communities too.”

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Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at csr@ngobox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage.