Surajpur – ‘Saubhagya Yojana’ has proven to be a boon for families residing in remote forested areas of the district having no access to conventional electricity facilities. After a long wait, people in these areas have finally got relief from lighting kerosene-powered equipment, chimneys, and lanterns at night. Operated by Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA), solar home lighting systems have been installed in a total of 6083 houses in the district under this scheme.
Under this, the installation of a solar module of 200-watt capacity, five L.E.D. lights, one fan, a battery, and a charge controller is done at the house of beneficiaries. This provides a back-up of 07-08 hours in the battery for use at night time. This is proving to be of great help to the villagers in doing cooking and other household work. Besides, the children are now able to study easily at night. With the installation of the solar home lighting system, there is no more fear of snakes, scorpions, and other wild animals at night. Meanwhile, earlier people were forced to live in the dark and life came to standstill after sunset. Food has to be cooked before it gets dark and children used to finish their studies in hurry.