Click to play videoSamangaon (Maharashtra): Instead of stepping into the light of knowledge, a five-year-old is taking her first steps into a dark classroom.
It’s the Aanganwaadi in Samangaon near Nashik where learning for tiny tots is an ordeal thanks to seven to eight hours of power cuts every day.
“Our village can only afford this dingy shelter to teach these children. With no light, it's very dark and outside it's too sunny to really take the kids out and teach them. It really gets difficult for these children to even see what they are writing,” said a teacher at Aanganwadi, Jayawanta Laxman Jamdade.
For these villages, electricity when they need it the most is a distant dream. And the irony of the fact is that these villages for instance are only a stones throw away from the Eklera Thermal Power Plant, that produces close to 60 MWs of electricity per day.
For this cluster of three adjoining villages, all housework is done after eight in the night because that’s when the villages get power.
“We can't help it. It's really difficult. We come back from work in the evening and find there's no light. It comes quite late into the evening. That's when we cook. We even put our children to sleep early and wake them up later in the night to study,” said a villager, Asaram Baguji Wakale.
A year ago, power cuts were more manageable at three to four hours a day but now with the Maharashta Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited (MSEDCL) already indicating further power cuts, the situation now looks grim.
“There's a huge dearth of power already and with a defecit of 5,000 plus MW power, if additional generation does not take place, the situation only looks headed for the worst,” said CEO of MSEDCL, Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pande.
“These children too have dreams and aspirations as much as any other child living in towns and cities. But while those children have the comfort of an electric light or a fan for comfort, it's the darkness without electricity that give these children and their slates company.
(With inputs from Niranjan Takle)
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