This is the true story of
Balakrishnan and his villagers.
BALAKRISHNAN, who was the leader
of this story, is a farmer and the father of three children. His family lives
in isolated area called Ma-Ussakanda in Gammaduwa GND which is belongs to the
Laggala -Pallegama DSD, 23Km away from Raththota town in Matale district, Sri
Lanka. The area of he lives rich in tea and cinnamon cultivation which belongs to
the private estates. Balakrishnan and thirteen other families work in these
estates and lives under poor infrastructure facilities. They lived where the area covered with
mountains range of Knuckles and Karagasthenna. There had not clear road access to
the village, and there had not electricity for those families.Every night they lived under kerosene
lamps. The electricity had become the dream for them. Due to high initial cost
for supplying electricity for thirteen families; even electricity board had not
interested to supplying electricity to
those villagers.
However Practical Action (INGO) had taken several
actions to supplying electricity for remote area of the country on those days. According
to the information which was given by Central Provincial Council of Sri Lanka;
Practical action our team had taken that challenge and responsibility for
supplying electricity for Ma-Ussakanda villagers. Central provincial council had promised
to support by funding and our team had given the technical support for that project.
The first time we visited to
there we had identified the potentials for supplying electricity. The area is very
much rich in water resources. Natural springs and streams start from those areas. We
could identified that those water resources have possibility for generate sufficient electricity
for those families. The water flowing velocity and its capacity, angle of the terrain
and other condition is very much favorable for generating the electricity. Not
in Macro level. Not in Mini or Micro level. But with PICO hydro system.PICO hydro is the system which
generate under 1KW electricity. We could identified two potential sites for building
PICO hydro plants. The potential 2KW was very much enough to lighting the 20W hundred CFL bulbs. However the people’s most wanted fact was lighting and watching TV. The estimated electricity amount was enough for these purposes. We have asked them (villagers) to suggest the leader form them and Balakrishnan had taken that responsibility.
So next time we had started to supplying
equipment for that purpose. When our team arriving there we could seen happy and
confident from villagers faces. Balakrishnan had arranged the people for working
with us.First we had constructed the weir
across the stream to create for-bay tank. The Villagers worked very hard with
construction this weir. After completing the tank (Intake) we started to lay
the penstock line towards the place where the machine installed. Nearly 120m
penstock line we had laid.
Then we installed the machine and other equipment
where the place we hope to install the machine. The children, youngsters and
matured all have worked very actively. Actually
Balakrishnan had arranged those things very well.Then we released the water from pen-stock line where it connected to tank; and runners had started to work.
Finally we generated the electricity. The happy of the people’s faces we cant tell through words. They are very much happy about this. Their dream had became reality. We were also very much happy about this work from our heart. Because under very difficult conditions and giving some risk for our selves; we could realized the some ones dream. It will be benefited them for future and generation.
We appointed Balakrishnan as the
working engineer of the Plant No:1 and Rajendra as the plant No 2. Finally we supply
the electricity for their house.
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