As policy-makers agonise over bio-fuels and the food versus energy security debate, jatropha oil lights up one tribal village in Kabirdham district of Chhattisgarh for four hours every night.

One of approximately 25,000 remote villages in India waiting for electricity, Ranidahra might still be stuck in the queue if it held out for the Government of India to meet its target of 100 per cent electrification by 2012. So, it has decided to move on its own.

An electricity plant powered by jatropha oil brings 600 villagers a brighter perspective every evening. Women in the village say replacing kerosene lamps with electrical light has made cooking more convenient, children have fewer excuses for avoiding their textbooks, and more importantly, the extra hours of light provide more time for making beedis, main livelihood for villagers. Added to this, streetlights are making roads safer and one household has just bought a colour television set, unimaginable 10 months ago.

But it wasn’t easy convincing villagers to adopt bio-fuels, says Somnath Bhattacharjee, vice- president of NGO Winrock International India (WII), which along with the British High Commission and the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy, spearheaded the electrification project in 2005. The villagers wanted to wait for an electrical grid connection and they weren’t keen on generating and paying for the service. “After several months of rapport building, however, Ranidahra was set on the plan,” said Probyut Mukherjee, project manager, WII. A light point costs 20 rupees, while the household with a television set has agreed to pay 30 rupees for its electrical socket.

... contd.