Energy or power is usually linked to industries or multi-storeyed buildings where all facilities are powered by electricity. But what we often forget are the energy needs of the poor. We might ask why the poor need energy. They do it for the same reasons that the affluent in the cities need energy. They need it to light their homes and their lives. They need energy to change the very way they live and look at life. Energy driven farm tools can increase crop yield. Energy is needed to run the irrigation canals. There is also a gender aspect here. Women and girls spend hours everyday to collect firewood. They can save those precious hours for more productive work and education if they could use other forms of energy for their kitchens. LPG cylinders do not reach the interior villages and firewood is no longer a viable fuel. Besides, the dependence on firewood also means cutting down trees and destroying the environment Hence electricity seems like the only clean energy. Unfortunately not much is invested in electricity generation. Electricity as a cooking medium can help improve the health of rural poor. We know that burning fossil fuels and bio mass generates a lot of smoke which in turn affects health. There are so many cases of respiratory problems among the poor mainly because of the smoke they inhale in poorly ventilated kitchens. In many developing countries the cost of electricity is subsidised but this subsidy largely benefits the rich who consume more electricity per day than the rural peasant could do in a year.
Meghalaya has hundreds of Common Service Centres (CSCs) which have been created by government mainly to help citizens access Information Technology related services via e-governance. But while most of the CSCs have all the facilities and people were visiting them for different services what they suffered from was intermittent power cuts. How can we talk of the IT revolution when we cannot power that revolution? Meghalaya has been talking a lot of things for decades but has nothing much to show on the ground. This has to change. The growing energy needs must be met in-house.