In the bustling town of Kolkatta the spirit of entrepreneurship is immortal, in spite of the number of attempts of stifling by the communist parties. Vinay Jaju, a radical activist and a freind of IYCN, has decided to materialise his passion for creating a decentralised model for bringing energy to rural India. His company Onergy has brought together technology vendors, a microfinance institute and an entrepreneur training institute to build a unique rural energy centre (shakti kendra) at Ullon, on the border of Sunderbans.
The road from the city of Kolkatta to the village is filled with plenty of local vendors and street hawkers who are all entrepreneurs in their own right. I was most excited to drink Indian ‘Sprite’ for Rs 2. Ullon itself is a beautiful town with ponds and farm feilds all around. Vinay himself came here for two reasons: firstly, because this is where the electricity grid ends, and secondly, because here operates Vivekananda Sevakendra-o-sishu-Uddyan (VSSU), a microfinance institute which is 23 years old and has self-help groups (SHGs) across the Sunderbans.
Vinay and I took a rickshaw from the train station to the potential renewable energy centre (REC). At the moment it is half of a beautiful school building, used by Onergy display the products and for training. The people at the REC have a real pride in what they are part of, judging by their smiling faces, the sense of hope and a lot of positive energy in the air. We also visited the VSSU building, which is now a huge centre and promoting ecotourism, conducting vocational training and providing microfinance service to many SHGs in the region. Our visit was not very long, as the clouds threatened to rain and we were going back in a roofless vehicle. The journey back to the train was in darkness, but with hope and enthusiasm to light up the village with shakti from the shakti kendra.