Till about a month ago, sunset meant blackout for over 600 villagers of Ahire. Men had to stop working, women could not step out of their houses and children—if they hadn’t finished their homework—could not complete it till the next morning. Ahire is just 15 km from Pune but seems light years away in terms of development. It was only in May this year that district authorities fitted solar panels in the village and now, villagers can operate two tube lights along with a black-and-white television set in each home after sunset.

As the villagers sit chatting under the streetlights that run on solar energy, they cannot stop talking of what it was to live in darkness all these years.

“In 1949, the National Defence Academy acquired 650 acres of the village land. They promised us five gunthas (one guntha is 101 square metres) of land per family if we relocated to another village called Ganapathy Matha, 10 km from here. But they actually offered us only two gunthas and we refused to leave. Since then, the authorities have been blocking all development in this village,” says Pandurang Pawar, a 72-year-old.

So while they are celebrating the new light in their lives, the village does not have a hospital simply because no doctor wants to work here. The village has water and irrigation problems too. “Our wells cannot have motors because there is no power. New borewells cannot be dug for the same reason,” says sarpanch Bhagwan Wanjale.

... contd.