Solar Street Light: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Making Streets Safe

Solar Street Light: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Making Streets Safe

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A discussion between our community mobilisers and Village Development Committee (VDC) members of Neyamtullahpur village in Sitamarhi revealed a lighting-related problem. Due to inadequate lighting in the area, the residents of Neyamtullahpur encountered a number of issues in their daily lives. A majority of the villagers are daily wagers, going either outside their villages or even to the nearest town, and return late in the evening or at night. The unlit streets made the returning residents vulnerable to animal attacks. A VDC member told us that her children’s safety was a concern since they returned home at night after tuitions.

The issue of lighting, especially in the streets, needed a solution.

Under Project Utthan, an Oxfam India-HDFC Bank CSR initiative, 10 solar street lights were installed in the village. "My husband was having problems returning late at night. He has benefited greatly from street lighting at night,” VDC treasurer Sarita Devi said after the installation. She donated a part of her land to set up one of the solar street lights. Her husband drives an e-Rickshaw and would face difficulty driving home at night especially during the rainy season when the roads were muddy and dark.

Minor maintenance work such as cleaning the solar panels is being carried about by community members. For more technical forms of maintenance, the supplier of the solar street lights has a five-year contract wherein they will take care of maintenance. The street lights are intended to reduce energy poverty by providing rural communities with a reliable, clean, and sustainable energy source via the installation of rechargeable solar lights, thereby creating a chain of mutually reinforcing social and economic effects. Its installation is bringing about an awareness of renewable sources of energy in the community.

Rural areas in Bihar, such as villages in Sitamarhi, face a host of energy supply issues; only a small percentage of the rural population has access to reliable electricity. A majority of these rural households rely on single sources of biomass fuel, such as wood and coal, as well as more hazardous resources, such as kerosene to meet their cooking and lighting requirements. These sources are expensive, inefficient, unhealthy, and harmful to the environment. The use of energy is an important indicator of the household's, as well as the village’s, overall well-being.

Through Project Utthan, solar energy has been extensively used. In Sitamarhi alone, 160 solar street lights has been installed, 656 solar lamps distributed among girl students and women (for household work), and three solar irrigation systems have been set up which is likely to irrigate a 100 acres and grow crops through the year. This has also helped reduce 43 kg carbon emissions in a year.

Oxfam India-HDFC Bank’s HRDP initiative ‘Project Utthan’ contributes towards the socio-economic empowerment of people from marginalised communities by aiding them with sustainable livelihood options and improving access to essential services (especially women) across 15 villages in two blocks in Sitamarhi.

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