NEW DELHI, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Villagers of Kanugaon in northeast India marked 25 years without electricity Sunday with a mock Hindu fire ritual to call attention to their life in darkness.
Utility poles to light up the village were delivered in 1985, yet the residents of Kanugaon in the Assam state still have no access to electricity, CNN reports.
"All our petitions with the authorities have gone in vain," said Tankeswar Das, a member of the Committee to Mark the Silver Jubilee of Electricity Poles.
According to India's 2001 census, some 78 million rural households had no access to electricity. As part of the country's power supply plan named after slain former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, more than 100,000 darkened villages are to be electrified by March 2012.
But officials say that Kanugaon, along with many other villages, has largely remained left out in the first stage of the energy program due to limited sanctions for infrastructure and equipment.
"Hopefully, we will get the government sanction for the requirements to cater to the demands in the second stage later this year," said Lalit Sarma, senior project manager in the Golaghat district, where Kanugaon is located.
Authorities have acknowledged that inadequacies in power generation, transmission and distribution, along with wastage and theft, are major challenges to supplying energy to the India's billion-plus population.
In India, a village is considered electrified if it meets three criteria: It must have basic infrastructure, such as distribution transformers and power lines; it must have power supply in public institutions, such as schools, health and community centers and village council offices; and it must have electric connections in at least 10 percent of the total number of households.
Still, Kanugaon is considered electrified in project records.
"Most of us still live without power ... live in the dark. This electrification is only on paper," Das told CNN.
He said villagers must travel to a neighboring tea estate and pay to charge cell phones. They rely on kerosene for lighting.
Girish Sant of Prayas, a non-profit group that advocates public interest in the country's energy sector said India needs a stronger vigilance mechanism for the execution of its power projects.
"Targets cannot be achieved unless it is ensured that the last home in a village is hooked to a line that is very well-energized," Sant said to CNN, adding that tall electric poles with dead cables "are a mockery of the entire electrification scheme."
