Raisuan: Even as the central government brags about its claim of 100 per cent village electrification in the country, the ground reality as witnessed in various parts of tribal-dominated Keonjhar district speaks something different.
Scores of hilly remote villages in the mineral-rich district still reel under darkness even as the government has been implementing the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana.
In some villages, people still depend on oil lamps at their houses to dispel darkness while utility poles have been set up in other villages, though transmission lines have not been drawn till date.
There are villages like Kendupasi, Dimiridiha and Bistapal in Nuagaon panchayat; Sasan Sahi in Gopinathpur panchayat; Bhaliadihi, Jamunalia and Ambadahara in Danardhanpur panchayat; Tangartali Bhumija Sahi, Harshapur and Jalabanga in Raisuan panchayat and several villages in Bauripada panchayat where electricity has been a dream for the inhabitants.
“Over 70 per cent of BPL households in our village lack electricity,” lamented Putu Dehuri of Kendupasi.
Dibakar Patra and Padmavati Patra of the same village said electricity has been a distant dream for poor people like them.
Another resident Duryodhan Patra said the Centre-sponsored Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana has floundered as many villages in the region have been deprived of electricity.
Jharana Dehury, a resident of Gopinathpur, said scores of families including hers in the village do not have power connectivity.