Peerla banda Tanda, is a village in Rangareddy district, Telangana, with a population of a mere 120 people. This is one such village where, in spite of grid connectivity, there is an irregular or negligible power supply for days. It is the complete representation of how impoverished and underdeveloped a village can be, especially in the face of infrastructure failure. Almost every household in the village used to have a water pipeline and bore well. However, it turned out to be of no use to the villagers as they didn’t have the basic requirement of proper access to electricity supply to make the bore well pumps run. Villagers had to walk miles just to collect a few liters of drinking water. The situation was so grave that villagers were forced to use water only for drinking purposes and had to go without bathing and cleaning for many days.
The installation of a solar pump in Peerla Banda tanda was a result of Claro Energy undertaking a Drinking Water project for the Telangana (erstwhile Andhra Pradesh) government’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitary System (RWSS&S) body, which was promoted by the Ministry of Renewable Energy,
This solar water pump not only helped the villagers get access to on-demand clean drinking water every day but also incorporated storage of water in overhead tanks. This made water available for cleaning and sanitation purposes, as well. Now with access to water, the people of the village could do what was unthinkable to them before. Their basic needs – such as bathing daily, proper sanitation – were finally met.
Claro Energy, with the support of the government and the Sarpanch of Gandeed block, has ensured that no child has to miss school and no adult has to forgo potential daily wage earnings. Villagers do not have to walk kilometers in the scorching heat, anymore, just to fetch a few liters of water.
Challenges
All this did not arrive on a smooth path, though. The installation team of Claro Energy faced a fair few roadblocks which they had to overcome to make the project a success. Firstly, this village was in a very remote corner of Telangana. Transportation of solar panels and other installation material to the site was a major hurdle in itself. A variety of transport modes, including both large and small goods vehicles, non-motorized vehicles, and, to a certain extent, by foot. An unprecedented second issue was convincing villagers. Being a fairly remote area, education levels of the locals were not high enough for them to understand how electricity can be generated from the sun. They simply did not believe such a thing was possible and thought it was some kind of scam to their detriment. This caused them to be non-cooperative with the installation team. As local help is of utmost importance to an installation process, it was imperative to convince the villagers about this concept. Apart from a lot of convincing by both the sarpanch and Claro staff, the nail was finally hit on the head by taking some of the villagers to a nearby project and showing them, much to their astonishment, exactly how the setup worked.
Access to clean water is the basic right of every human being, and Claro Energy, as an organization, is committed to fighting the water scarcity problem facing the most remotely located populace of this country. Clean drinking water uplifts livelihoods The Peerla Banda Tanda drinking water project is one such story.