SOLUKHUMBU:
For the residents of Solukhumbu’s remote Deusa village, lighting their houses with electricity was nothing less than a dream earlier, but thanks to a foreign organisation their almost unattainable dream has come true.
After a French organisation built an 18 kilowatt micro hydropower project in the local Barkhukhola River, about 230 households in ward numbers 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 are enjoying 24/7 power supply, much to the envy of the people living in other parts of the country, who are reeling under more than 12 hours daily power-cut.
To commission the project, an organisation working to help the Sherpa kids had played an instrumental role.
“Though the hydropower project was conceived mainly to manage lights in four primary and one secondary schools in the village, it has also benefited and saved us from using expensive keresone lamps in our houses,” said a local.
Construction of the project had started about five months ago with the investment of around Rs 5.5 million.
“Of the total fund, the locals had chipped in Rs 1.5 million,” said Nima Sherpa, chairperson of the organisation to help Sherpa children.
Sherpa further said that the project was handed over to the local community this week.
“It’s a great help to the villagers who otherwise would have never got electricity, that too round the clock,” said Sherpa.
Sherpa further said that the onus to protect and maintain the project now rests on the locals.
Source : The Himalayan Times
