From darkness to light

At a community school in Basorong village, eight-year-old Atur Romngchon, a class 3 student, holds on possessively to his solar lamp. His name is written on it. So it is with each of his classmates, who have a solar lamp at home with their names on them. They are all students of a community-run school, simply called Community English School, which has from nursery till class 5, and a total of 69 students.

Headmaster of the school, Lalsing Ingti says the solar lamp is particularly significant when there is no power. The village has irregular electricity and the problem is at its worst during the monsoon, when the power goes off for weeks.

The solar lamp is also a handy alternative to kerosene, since, as Ingti says, “even kerosene supply is not regular.”

Lokhi Rongpi, 32, a mother of three, has managed to purchase a solar light for each of her children. “They are excited,” she exclaims, and their excitement is motivation to study. Rongpi is also a member of the village Self-Help Group that is proactively engaged in bringing solar light to the village.

Village Basorong is about 40 km from Guwahati city. It has around a hundred households. The village comes under Kamrup district in Assam. Women in this village mostly engage in cultivation and handloom weaving. “We cultivate ginger, chilli, turmeric, other vegetables,” says Rongpi. They sell their produce at the nearest town, Sonapur, about an hour’s drive in a truck, the only available local transport.

For the village folk, the new solar lamp has been helpful in many ways. “I use it while cooking dinner too,” says Rongpi happily. The lamp also doubles up as a torch when it is dark. .

The women Self-Help Groups coordinate as a network. While women like Rongpi facilitate awareness and distribution of solar energy in the village, SHG federation members in Dimoria are actively learning the solar lamp technology. Taking a break from traditional activity like weaving or crafts, these women assemble, skilfully, various parts of the lamp with their own hands. The lamp has two components — the solar panel that is kept for heating/charging in the open during the day and the lamp, which has a bulb with a stand and switch.

An opportunity for income

SHG member Monju Samran says she earns ₹12 per lamp and they assemble 40-50 solar lamps in a day. Samran and others underwent intensive training at the Assam State Rural Livelihood in Guwahati. The solar lamp is strictly for schools and students in interior villages. This has provided an opportunity for them to earn income.

Nayamoni Chamua, a mother of two, recalls how she was dependent entirely on her husband for personal and household expenditure. “Now, I am the one who gives him money,” she says, smiling. Her earnings have enabled her to open a small grocery shop near her home, where she also works on repair and maintenance of used solar lamps.

Assembling the solar lamp and taking it to the rural schools has helped not only the students in interior villages but also the household economy of the SHG members. Geeta Deka, aged about 30, started mushroom cultivation about four months ago, with her savings from assembling the solar light, for a year. The main breadwinner of her family — which includes her widowed sister-in-law and her three children — Deka now employs a few workers in her mushroom farm.

The solar lamp scheme was initiated in December 2016 under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The 70 Lakh Solar Study Lamp project, in collaboration with Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) and IIT Bombay, was conceptualised to empower 70 lakh rural students in 20,000 villages across Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha. The project offers affordable and environmentally sustainable illumination to aid school students in their education in the fastest and most effective manner. Besides education, the scheme’s other objective is to economically empower women and, most importantly, curb kerosene dependency.

Assam State Rural Livelihood Mission (ASRLM) Director Nandita Hazarika says the scheme has reached out to over 4 lakh children in 21 blocks across the State since its assembling and distribution work started in 2017. The target is 8 lakh by the end of 2019. “We have trained more than 500 women SHG members,” says Hazarika.

ASRLM is the implementing partner of the solar lamp scheme in Assam. The training for capacity building of the SHG women groups, who are the key beneficiary and actors of the project, was conducted phase-wise. The training, according to Hazarika, has empowered the women to learn new skills and given them confidence. “They never thought they could assemble such technology.”

The ASRLM Director underscores that the scheme does not encourage free distribution — which will devalue the product “One lamp is for ₹100,” says Hazarika. This creates a value addition. “The students value the lamp and so do the parents”. According to Hazarika, a fully-charged solar lamp can provide illumination for six hours.

“The solar lamp not only benefits in education but also towards the health of the children and their families,” says Hazarika. Villagers use kerosene oil for lighting lamp in the absence of electricity. “Therefore we identified villages that are still dependent on kerosene lamps,” says Hazarika.

Such has been the beneficial impact of the solar project that ASRLM wants to take it to a new level — higher energy generation for other appliances, such as bulb, fan, or street lights.

The writer is a Manipur-based journalist