Since 1936, a remote village of Assam lives under the dim light of lamps and candles in the night. Though the electricity has reached the neighboring villages of Ramgaizang, Alubazar and Nadailong but the residents of Kunapara were deprived of this essential commodity.

The village plunges into darkness every evening in the absence of electricity. Poor villagers cannot afford kerosene for lighting lamps and children have no other option than to finish their studies before sunset.

“We have approached concerned departments with our challenges but did not receive any proper response, some people pretended to help and took money from the villagers but cheated us”, says Rupak Nath, farmers’ club secretary of the village.

Even after 83 years, Kunapara could not succeed in getting electricity. More than 52 families faced several problems in day-to-day life. Without electricity farms cannot use tube wells to irrigate the field, people cannot charge their phones to contact family or friends in an emergency.

But now the scenarios is slowing changing, the government is coming to the village to install electricity. “Generations together have suffered due to non-availability of electricity all these years and now it’s so pleasing to see the electric poles and installed, and the wires being laid”, said Bijan Nath, a resident of the village.

This has not changed overnight, but due to the collective efforts of the people which were facilitated by Seva Kendra Silchar (SKS), one of the implementing partner of Caritas India’s FARM Northeast programme. During one of the visits in December 2016, villagers shared their hardship with the team.  Dipa Das, project coordinator of SKS explained to villagers that their problems can only be resolved with their own collective action.

After several rounds of meetings and discussion, the farmers’ club approached the Electricity Department at Lakhipur Block to find a permanent solution. On 25th September 2017, the representatives from the village submitted the application to the concerned officer of electricity department to draw his attention towards the issue but due to some unavoidable circumstances, the application was not forwarded to the next level.

Though the proposal was ignored the villagers did not lose hope and approached Gram Panchayat and Block Development Officer on 12 July 2018. With the support received from the local government the letter was forwarded to Assam Power Distribution Company Limited for taking necessary action and on 16 July 2018, the letter was finally put up to the Sub Divisional Engineer of Electricity Department, Lakhipur.

With the intervention of Farm Northeast – II, the village Kunapara were recently connected with the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana which aims to provide continuous power supply to rural India. As a result, more than 30 electric posts were successfully installed in the village and household electrification was also initiated under Saubhagya (Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana). The concerned department has assured that the work will complete before March 2019. Village youth has taken initiative and supported government electrician to complete the work on time.

“Due to lack of electrification we have faced problem in education, development, communication and many more but today we are very grateful to see after settling for more than 80 years and struggling for our right, the electrification works has been under progress. On behalf of my village people, I express my gratitude to Farm NE project staff for the partnership and support, commitment and dedication for the development of community”, expresses happily Birala Barman, the Village Headman to FARM Northeast program team.

The community-based organization (CBO) of the village have realized their strength and have made a strategic plan to spread out the knowledge on various schemes and services to the neighboring villages and helping them to get the services through collective effort.

SKS is planning to reach four more Karbi villages in different block (Kalain) who are struggling to get the solution on the related issue. The team is trying to connect people with the schemes to get their entitlements which were allotted to them by the government.