OFFTRACK: DEHRADUN, UTTARANCHAL

Mill On The Stream

An NGO upgrades watermills to give power to the people, literally

If anything supports the case for privatisation of power generation, Lachhiwala village does. Just 25 km from Uttaranchal's power-starved capital Dehradun, there has been no power cut in Lachhiwala for three years. This small village of nine tribal families has achieved this miracle from a watermill (gharat), which was used only to grind wheat and maize. Now it can generate up to 5 KW of electricity, more than enough for the entire village.

Ram Gopal, the proud owner of the watermill, read about the Jal Andolan launched by an NGO, the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO). A chance meeting with its chairman Anil Joshi three years ago changed Gopal's life. Joshi helped Gopal modernise the watermill by replacing the wooden turbine with an iron one, fitting it with ball bearings and installing a steel lining into the wooden flume to allow the water to flow smoothly. These changes doubled the watermill's grinding capacity. With further modification, they allowed it to expel mustard oil and de-husk paddy also.

But the real miracle happened when Joshi installed an alternator and a voltage stabiliser-the 50-year-old watermill started generating power. The modification cost Rs 50,000. Now Gopal has built a fish pond, started an apiary and is growing vegetables on the hitherto arid land near the watermill.

That's just one of HESCO's success stories. Here's another: a watermill set up by Pushkar Singh Bhandari of Khod village in Rudraprayag district supplies power to 51 houses. Bhandari has provided one bulb to each house and charges Rs 10 every month for maintenance.

HESCO has been instrumental in upgrading about 150 watermills in Uttaranchal. While simple modernisation costs Rs 2,000, upgradation to produce power is more expensive-a reason why only seven of the 150 watermills are generating power. Joshi believes the five lakh watermills in the Himalayan region have the potential to generate 2,500 MW of power. This would translate into a saving of Rs 120 crore per hour. Besides, it can provide employment to 15 lakh people. The only expenditure the watermill owners have to undertake-besides a paltry Rs 60 a year as tax to the state government-is on maintenance.

The Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources has agreed to finance the upgradation of watermills for power supply-Rs 60,000 or 75 per cent of the actual cost, whichever is lower. A step in the right direction, but there's a lot of red tapism involved, says Thakur Singh Nyal, who has been associated with HESCO for the past six years.

Joshi set up HESCO 12 years ago in Uttaranchal to modernise watermills and set up cottage industries to make pickles, herbal mosquito repellents and incense sticks. "I wanted to remove the tag of money-order economy from Uttaranchal and make it self-dependent," he says. Besides upgrading watermills, HESCO set up the National Watermillers' Association of gharat owners and an agency called Suvas to market its cottage-industry products.

HESCO's main aim is to generate cheap power by harnessing energy from the thousands of tiny streams that criss-cross the state, thus doing away with the need to build a big dam. With its network of volunteers working throughout the state to produce cheap power, who needs Enron?