SIEMENS

When you do good, you will find people around you who will try hard to pull you down. Gain strength from this opposition, and continue on your chosen path. They will come round when they see you succeed,” says the ‘thought of the day’ in Marathi — a language spoken in the Indian state of Maharashtra — on a notice board of Amle’s only school.

Amle is 130 kilometers north of Mumbai. It is surrounded by a thick forest on three sides and a river on the fourth. It has 58 huts and 295 residents. The nearest town with a semblance of civilization is Wada, at a distance of 27 kilometers. It is — for those heading for Amle — the last outpost of phone connectivity. The entire stretch between the two towns is also devoid of streetlights.

Amle is one among the thousands of blink-and-you-miss-it hamlets that dot the length and breadth of India. During the monsoons, the only way to enter Amle is by wading through the river Gargai, which separates it from the rest of the world. On stormy days, it is impossible for anyone to cross it. In other words, the town is cut off from civilization.

Durga Bai, a wizened lady, who says she is 60 or 70 years old, has seen it all. Her hut is one of the larger structures in Amle. It is propped up by wooden beams. “When someone falls ill, we have two options — a primary healthcare centre and a rural hospital. Both are 20 kilometers away. We require able-bodied men to carry the sick on their shoulders,” she trails off. Her thoughts turn to the many fatalities that the villagers have faced due to lack of medical aid. Most recently, in June three villagers died due to lack of prompt medical help.

“Water-borne diseases and ailments related to malnutrition are rampant in Amle. Add to this, social ills like illiteracy, alcoholism and child marriages and you can see that it is far from being a model village,” says Shraddha Shingarpure of Aroehan, an award-winning NGO. The latter has not only introduced Siemens to Amle, but has also entered into a partnership with the company to bring about social transformation. Durga’s grandchildren are among the 29 students of Amle’s school, a run-down shed-like structure of around 100 square feet. The school sees many dropouts — at present, only 30 adult males (out of 140) and ten females (out of 155) have finished school. A boarding school about five kilometers away offers the only alternative for students who wish to continue studying. Dilip Vare, the head of the village development committee, is the only one who has studied there.

Adopting a Village. For decades, Durga’s day would start at 6:00 in the morning. She and her late husband would leave their children home and make their way to a farm just outside their village. They would be back home by 7 p.m. just as darkness set in. Droughts were common, as were the long treks for drinking water during the summers that left the village arid. On moonless or cloudy nights, the only sources of light were torches made of dried wood and twigs. Every home has a silo attached to it to store wood — the source of light and fuel for cooking food. The odds were stacked against Amle seeing any trace of development. It resides right in the middle of a protected forest conservation area. The state electricity board was thus unable to provide power to the hamlet.

All of this began to change in 2012 when Siemens adopted Amle, and Project Asha was launched. In partnership with Samved Energy Systems, an engineering, procurement and construction contractor, Siemens set up a 12-kilowatt peak (kWp) solar power station. The project team installed a simple-membrane water filter to provide clean potable water. This filter system from Siemens Water Technologies purifies up to 20,000 liters of unclean water per day by pumping it through a membrane of ultra-fine fibers. Siemens’ partner Aroehan also helped set up bunds — miniature dams — and infrastructure for rain water harvesting, allowing year-round irrigation, and thereby providing a source of livelihood.

Prashant Chandwadkar, who works for the Siemens Infrastructure and Cities Sector — more specifically for the Low and Medium Voltage Division — volunteered as project manager for Project Asha’s technology implementation. “I am glad Siemens has adopted the village and is bringing in progress,” he says. “Every village in India could be similarly transformed through technology.”

Initially, Prashant and his team struggled in the face of a lack of skilled manpower in the village. However, local people were soon trained in the basic skills of handling equipment. A Siemens engineer supervised their worksite. “A big challenge was access to the village. The truck transporting the equipment had to be parked four kilometers away. The villagers took over, carrying heavy batteries, cable drums and inverters on their heads and walking down a rough path, wading through the river and again up to the village. All of this proved that the villagers were as determined as we were to make the project a success,” Chandwadkar adds.

The day the 20 streetlights lit up the village, in July 2012, Durga said that it felt as if she was in Mumbai. “Mumbai has come to us, and hopefully in the future nobody from this village will have to move to Mumbai to earn a livelihood.” Shraddha agrees. “With power, the villagers are now capable of complementing their meager income by preparing masala (mixtures of spices) and other cottage industry products that they can sell. The water filter will reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases. The village officials had dug a well, but it had limited use until the Siemens solution came along,” she says. The additional crops and vegetables that are cultivated also help improve nutritional deficiencies.

Dr. Armin Bruck, Managing Director, Siemens Ltd., adds: “Apart from bringing in solar energy, pumps for irrigation, and a water filter for drinking water, we are also involved in bringing about social change. We are doing so by increasing health awareness among adolescent girls, the empowerment of women, and adult literacy. Agricultural support will also ensure the village sustains itself with year-around farming.”

Why People Will Want to Stay. Vilas Erande of Samved adds a word of caution, though. “The children can now see and learn at night, not just listen. But unless villagers are trained and sensitized to the use of technology, the model may fail. You need someone accountable to look after it.” The village school’s teacher, Janardhan, offers his advice on how to make the model work. “The villagers, like other consumers, will not value what is freely available. They will appreciate the true value of development only when they pay for it,” he says. With this in mind, Amle’s development committee has decided to charge each household $1 per month. This amount will be used for the upkeep of the system, and will also help make the project self-sustaining.

As the head of the village development committee, Dilip Vare, a wiry youth in his mid-twenties, has the last word. He has been to training seminars and conferences where he learned how even basic technology can transform his village. “The village needs its people. This is just the beginning; eventually we will have enough opportunities here to ensure that they want to stay,” he says. Project Asha has brought hope to a village. Amle has gone from being a remote, inhospitable hamlet to a model, not just for the rest of the country, with its 120,000 off-grid villages — but for the rest of the world.