Case Studies

A Ray of Light in Darkness

Imagine a village in India where inhabitants live without electricity in darkness yet they receive their monthly power bills for something they never use.

Kahla a small village situated on the banks of River Kahla in district Banda, has an interesting story. This small village got electrified by UP government in 1991. But destiny had something else in store. Unprecedented floods in 1992 in Kahla village left 150 families stranded. About 100 causalities were reported. Whatever development had taken place there in the name of roads and electricity poles was destroyed in flash floods. Human lives and cattle heads perished causing huge loss to the poor people.

Plagued by illiteracy, lack of awareness and knowledge, poor people become easy prey to all kinds of fraudsters. This was not the end of their woes. In 1996 almost all villagers had received IDF (meter not working) bills. Most of the bills received by the villagers had fake reading and huge amount of not less that Rs 5,000 each. A few amongst those who received IDF bills were Raghunath Nishad. He received a bill having consumption dates of 16/6/96 to 15/8/96 stating meter reading as 103 units and a bill amounting to Rs 5,686. However, in fact the actual meter reading in his meter was just 5 units. Ramdev is another victim, his RC got removed and he was jailed in August 2003 for non payment of his bill of 17 units. There are other victims of gross insensitiveness of administration also, such as Balram (7 units), Chhote (57 units) and Shivcharan (66 units). But this was not all. When the poor villagers contacted Jamuna Prasad Bose, the then Cabinet Minister (Rural Development), to solve their problem, he used to charge Rs 2 per person from the villagers to talk to higher authorities. But to no avail. He also couldn't solve their problem.

Parivartan Pariyojna working in field of women empowerment and rural development was contacted by some villagers collectively. This proved to be a turning point in redress of their grievances. The project staff organised a VDC meeting. The meeting was attended by all the Villagers, the Parivartan staff motivated the villagers to fight for the injustice done to them. In the meeting it was jointly decided that they would fight for their rights. Parivartan co-coordinator decided to take the help from both print and electronic media. With the support from Parivartan and media the villagers along with the project members demonstrated in support of their cause in September 2004, which was widely covered by print media.

All the villagers also collectively gave an application to the District Magistrate, mentioning the details of the problem and demanded early solution. They also contacted then SP Jaggi Ahmad and ADM Nawab Ali. On their instance a case was filed with consumer forum. The local administration on seeing the popular sentiment came under pressure. With the issue being covered by the media and pressure from the Parivartan staff, the District Magistrate then investigated the matter personally and after finding out the innocence of villagers he took strict action against those who were accountable. Ultimately the poor villagers got a reprieve and their RC’s were cancelled and the bills raised earlier were declared null and void.

The villagers give all the credit to the Parivartan Pariyojana and say that without support from them this problem could have not been solved. The villagers feel the most important instance in this span of time has been the awareness that Parivartan has created in their village. The villagers also feel that if the Parivartan would have not created awareness and motivated them they would have never been able to overcome this problem and would have been prey of the so called red tapism of our system.

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