In September 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Saubhagya Scheme or Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, an Indian government project to provide electricity to the households, an ambitious effort to provide electricity to the 40 million households that lacked access. The government announced the completion of the initiative in early 2019.
A village is deemed electrified, if 10 percent of all the households of the village has electricity access and if electricity is provided to public spaces such as schools, panchayat officers, health centres, community centres and dispensaries.
In this video, Community Correspondent (CC) Madana Marandi is letting us know about a village that has not seen electricity since the time of our independence, 75 years ago. This village is called Peethakhia Village, in Dampada Panchayat of Banki Block, Cuttack District, Odisha.
Odisha was the 1st state in the country to bring in power sector reforms in 1990. The main objective of the reform was to unbundle Generation, Transmission & Distribution activities of Odisha State Electricity Board and to establish an independent and transparent Regulatory regime. The State also has several projects such as Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana for total electrification of the state.
The population of Pithakhia Village is about 400 people, of 90 families and is in a remote area. Hope your sharing this video will help expedite the process of electrification in that village.
A Call for Research on AI’s Role in Amplifying the Insights of the Systemically Unheard
The article argues that systematically ignoring and silencing the voices of the poor and marginalized worldwide does not serve society or democracy well and must be countered. While new technologies such as AI could provide an opportunity for change, we contend that these technologies need to account more effectively for...
How to Juggle a Career as a Community Correspondent as well a Mainstream Media Reporter
When the staff at Gannett newspapers in the US coined the term MOJO (Mobile Journalism) to describe new ways of gathering and distributing news using emerging technologies in 2005, they would not have imagined its virality and use ten years later. Ask new media journalists and our Community Correspondents Shah...