Solar lamps brighten Mysuru colony

As six-year-old Taj Bi buried her face into her mother Tasin’s neck, and hugged her tightly, the villagers of Janata Colony, a hamlet 8 km from ­Mysuru, were moved by the scene. ­Promod and Tasin had reunited with their children Asmin and Taj Bi, after 18 months. They were compelled to leave the children with Tasin’s mother in the neighbouring village as there was inadequate lighting in their home and they feared that the children may get bitten by venomous insects lurking in the dark.

Thanks to RC Mysore Jayaprakash Nagar, D 3181, four out of the 30 families in the village will now experience relief from total darkness after sun set, as the club, in partnership with Liter of Light, an NGO, has installed two solar street and indoor lamps in their houses. “We’ve undertaken this project on a pilot basis and will provide a similar facility to the entire village soon,” says Club Secretary Karthik V.

Though the colony has over 400 houses, only 30 of them were occupied as the slum tenement lacks basic amenities like water supply, power, toilets, proper roads and drainage system even after two decades of existence. “But we realised that lighting was the top priority for the residents. Until then, they were using kerosene lamps to light up their homes at night,” he says.

The club is in the process of identifying ways to provide other basic amenities, including medical assistance, for the villagers and is looking for sponsors to support the work.

Economical lamps

The solar lamp is constructed with a plastic bottle filled with bleached water and is installed with a solar panel atop a wooden pole. A battery and four LED lamps of three watts each are encased in the bottle, which provides adequate light. The circuits are designed to switch on and off automatically.

While the cost of a solar street lamp is Rs 4,500, the indoor lamp, with a solar mobile charger, costs Rs 1,300.

The NGO installs this easily scalable and replicable solar device at places or in communities which don’t have any electricity. The club is ready to assist its counterparts in other districts with such economical solar lamps, says Karthik. He can be contacted at Karthiktara@gmail.com.