Innovation To Bring Electricity Solutions To 50,000 Villages In Bihar, UP, Bengal & Orissa LIKE the rest of Bihar, villages of West Champaran district used to remain bereft of power-supply for most parts of the day. As night fell, the area used to be enveloped in darkness. In poor families, lanterns were the only source of light. To charge the batteries of their mobiles, they had to travel long distances and pay Rs 5 each to get their handsets energised. Affluent households could afford to have power, thanks to the diesel-guzzling generators, run by a group of small-time operators. All that is changing, thanks to the initiative taken by a small group of US-based NRIs, who have set up rice husk-based power-generating units in the area, lighting up some 500-700 households spread over 20 villages in the district, and changing the profile of the cluster altogether. The enterprise, which has the backing of the Union new and renewable energy ministry (it has provided 20% of the total investment), has been so successful that the Paryavaran Bhawan, which houses the ministry, has been deluged with requests for similar ventures from rice-growing, but power-deficit states of Bihar, eastern UP, West Bengal and Orissa. Rice husk is found in abundance in these regions all through the year, providing fodder to the bio-mass gasification projects. The West Champaran experiment, according to ministry officials, was kicked off in February this year by a Patna-based NGO, Husk Power Systems (HPS), which aims to provide power to the villages ``in a financially sustainable, scaleable, environment-friendly and profitable manner.