Reaching to Unreached

“I could see electrical light from Solar Home System (SHS) in my house before my death, my sincere thanks to Winrock RAP-3 team” says eighty five year old Mrs. Pansara Adhikari from Pagnath VDC-6, Dailekh district. There are a number of households in rural area, like Pansara, that have not installed SHS. These households still depends upon polluting pine wood stick called “Diyalo” for lighting.

Government of Nepal has a provision to provide subsidy to these rural households to install SHS. Government blanket approach of promoting SHS fails understanding requirement of different consumer groups, as some are benefiting by participating directly  while other are open to the possibility if approached correctly. The existing private sector focuses on simplest and easiest market generally low hanging fruits but not where solutions are most needed. Number of eligible poor rural households do not have reach to government subsidy.

Winrock under RAP-3 project encouraged deprived community within road building group to install SHS. Winrock facilitated for 1) raising awareness of community on cost benefits of using SHS in place of “Diyalo”, 2) bridging missing linkage between private suppliers and consumers and 3) accessing government subsidy.

“It was an orientation program organized by Winrock RAP3 project after which I was assured on benefits that SHS will bring to my family, therefore, I decided to sell my wood bundle at lower price to quickly collect money required to buy SHS”, says Mr. Lal Singh B.K of Shreenagar VDC, Mugu district.

Winrock under RAP-3 project has supported 1,286 households within RAP-3 corridors that were deprived from electricity access.