Village In South Kashmir Gets Electricity For The First Time
Update: 2023-01-10 15:00 IST
The isolated and steep village of Dooru in the Anantnag district of south Kashmir is experiencing a happy moment as power has finally arrived there for the first time since independence. The majority of the 35–40 families of Tethan hamlet, which is 90 miles from Srinagar, are Gujjar and Bakerwal families.
The people are overjoyed to finally have electricity in their community. A local neighbour claimed that electric lamps are now used to light up our homes. He claimed that the lack of energy was causing them serious issues. They heated their homes with wood, and lit them with candles and lamps.
He added that due to the village's frequent snowfall, they also had issues with mobile charging during the winter. In order to keep in touch with our loved ones, they had to go a few kilometres on snow-covered roads to charge our cell phones.
Tethan hamlet is a steep settlement, thus Mohammad Iqbal, assistant executive engineer PDD Dooru, stated it was a very difficult job to electrify it. He claimed that installing a pole was a very difficult task and that a pole had to be pulled by five to six labourers from the main road to the settlement. But the effort paid off, and the village is now electrified.
Under the "Har Ghar Bijli Yojana" Pradhan Mantri development programme, the village has been electrified. Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the scheme in 2019. The Tethan village has been equipped with a 63 KV transformer, 38 HT poles, and 57 LT poles in order to electrify the entire community. According to Fayaz Ahmad Sofi, technical officer PDD Anantnag, the village's networking process began in 2022.