A social initiative by students of the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (Nitie) has ensured that people from Sadadpana village in Nashik district will have access to a luxury that Mumbaikars have taken for granted.
At `650 each, the students have provided the villagers an opportunity to use electricity with a solar lantern and a mobile charger that will work on solar power.
Speaking about the initiative, Sneha Singh, coordinator media cell, Nitie said that after the success of a similar initiative in Madhya Pradesh wherein students from the institute had provided light to about 500 homes in Jhabua district (MP), they decided to look at villages closer home. “After touring nearby districts, our peers found that Sadadpana village did not have access to electricity. Hence, it was decided to provide the lantern-cum-charger to the villagers there,” said Ms Singh.
“The device is very useful, as it not only provides light at night, but we can also charge our cellphones with it. Till now, we had to travel to a nearby city seven kilometers away to charge them and for this, we also had to pay `10 per hour of charging. Now, we will save that amount as well as the time it takes us to travel to and fro from the city,” said Shyam Pansare, a resident of the village.
Justifying the reason for charging the villagers Singh said, “The subsidy is to ensure that the villagers value and maintain the device properly.”