Rural School Electrification: Case Study for the Latehar District of Jharkahnd Growth Street India

Abstract

India is blessed with the wealth of rich natural resources and sources of energy. The sources of energy are fossil fuels like gas, coal, oil, etc., nuclear, hydel and, nonconventional energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, small hydro, geo-thermal, tidal, etc., which if used meticulously could fulfill the energy demand of urban and rural India. But, even though the distribution network has taken wires to the villages, but energy flows have remained meager. The all-India energy and “peak power” shortages increase by a percentage point each year in peak seasons. Since independence so far, only about 44% rural households could be given access to electricity and more than one lakh villages are still to be electrified. The power addition, already years behind, trailed the targets in the Eleventh Plan as well. Barring a miracle, electricity shortages will, therefore, continue beyond 2020. Over the years, the Government of India has embarked upon many initiatives for lighting rural areas in the country. Rural electrification has been regarded as a vital program for the development of rural areas. But as on 31st August 2014, a total of 32,227 villages of India are yet to be provided with electricity access. Out of a total of 593,732 inhabited villages as per the 2001 census, as on 31st August 2014, a total of 561,505 villages were electrified. In rural areas of the country, the agricultural and non-agricultural load (domestic and non-domestic) are typically catered through common distribution network. Rural electrification is more important because it is viewed as the key for accelerating rural development as it caters to the agriculture industry as well as small and medium agriculture industry. In this paper, authors tend to provide rural electrification model using solar energy for the schools in those areas. The case study is performed for a small district in Jharkhand called Latehar, which has currently poor rate of education as well as electricity and with employing the discussed model how significant changes are brought in education rate as well as electricity generation. This report explains how using alternate sources of power, problem of school electrification and sanitation can be solved. This will not only reduce absenteeism and attrition but also make education in such areas meaningful so that we do not end up losing an entire generation to these evils.   Keywords: Solar energy, rural, education  Cite this Article Bhandari Yogesh, Sharma Shashank, Faugat Shantanu et al. Rural school electrification: Case study for the Latehar district of Jharkahnd: Growth street India. Journal of Energy Environment and Carbon Credits. 2015; 5(3): 18-29p.