Schneider Electric India Foundation and LIVOLINK foundation provided roof top solar plants to to provide clean , reliable power to 76 Gram Panchayat Resource Centers and Seasonal Hostels in different districts of Odisha in 2018
The Gram Panchayat Resource Centers (GPRCs) helps the people of the gram panchayat in receiving the entitlements they are eligible for. Equipped with a laptop, TV, printer-scanner, photocopier and a solar connection to ensure the continuous functioning of the equipment, the GPRC aids the people in acquainting, applying and receiving the entitlements.
Seasonal hostel provides lodging and boarding facility to children of seasonal workers when they go to other places for their livelihood. Such children stay in these hostels and continue their studies.
Jampani is a village in the Nuapada block with a population of around 1300 people. The nearest town to Jampani is Biromal which is 10 km away. The district headquarters, Nuapada, is situated 21 km away, a 45-minute ride owing to the poor condition of roads. For completing any applications, the residents of Jampani village had to travel a minimum of 10 km to Biromal to get even basic facilities of printing, photocopying etc. Further compounding their problems is the fact that the electricity supply in the area is at best erratic.
The Jampani GPRC has been able to overcome this problem with solar panel and inverter provided by Schneider Electric India Foundation with collaboration of Tata Trusts at the centre. Eight months since the beginning of its operations, the Jampani GPRC has been able to reach 165 households, affecting the lives of more than 600 people by connecting them to more than 800 entitlements including pension, housing, employment, insurance and other social security schemes. The residents of Jampani now no longer need to struggle to get even basic entitlements. They are now better connected to the PRI members and are more aware of the functioning of their governance system.
During the months November to June, about a quarter of the houses in Kandetara stay latched and empty with the families migrating to seek work outside the state, usually in the bricks kilns of Telangana. A quarter more see the absence of one male member through most of the year. Predominantly a tribal society, with more than 50% of the population belonging to the Scheduled Tribe(ST) community, most of Kandetara’s residents are marginal farmers. Due to the area being drought prone, even the little land they have sees no productivity except for barely a subsistence amount of paddy. Most of the migrant families take their children along with them, disrupting their education and effectively cutting out the one path the children have in coming out of this cycle of drudgery.
To tackle this issue, the State Government has started seasonal hostels to prevent child migration and child labour and retain the children of laborer’s within the education system. Schneider in collaboration with Tata Trusts has supported the scheme with provision of facilities such as drinking water system, playing material remedial teachers and electricity connection through a solar panel.