Power Cuts
Short-Circuit Growth

Recently Nagaland government has shown much seriousness in achieving higher industrial growth.
In fact, currently a special Industrial Growth Centre with high standard infrastructure is being set up at Ganeshnagar near Dimapur. The Growth Centre, beside sufficient water supply and communication facilities, also aims to provide dedicated Power supply.

However, heavy dependence on on the neighboring States of Meghalaya and Assam for its power requirement has been a big obstacle in its road to achieve industrial growth. At present there are hours of power cuts everyday, affecting business units, especially the smaller ones like internet cafes, restaurants, computer centres and xerox centres. While some run their businesses on generator, those who can not afford a generator, simply shuts down the shop.

This, is turn, affects ordinary citizens’ lives. Renchano Humtsoe, our Correspondent is one of them. As there was no power, she couldn’t charge the batteries of her camera for many days. There is only a single Internet centre in her area and when power cuts forced the owner to shut down the café, Renchano couldn’t use a computer to burn a DVD with her video. She couldn’t access mails and above all, even though the video is available to a global audience, Renchano herself must wait for days before she can watch it on the web.

Recently the state government has commissioned three new power projects in the state. These are: 75 MW Hydel Project at Doyang, 24MW Hydel Project at Likhimro and another 24KW Thermal Project. With this, the power availability in the state is expected to improve, making the supply of adequate power to industry possible. However, according to the Association of Power Engineers of Nagaland (APEN), the state must also have new distribution lines, transformers and more employees. In short, along with capacity additions there should be increased manpower for manning the new assets.

Renchano Humtsoe
I am a Lotha Naga tribal, living in a small town called Wokha in North East part of India. I had to travel to Shillong to study my BA as n my town there are not enough educational opportunities. Shillong is a small, but modern town and when I was there, I realized that in Wokha people were missing out a lot of things, including the basic facilities like power, water etc. At that time I decided to become a social worker and journalist. But again, the opportunities of joining an organisation in Wokha are very limited because all the good ones are in big cities. But through my work with IndiaUnheard I feel like I am doing something towards my goal, and I can do it while living here. We are seven siblings in my family and I am the only girl left at home, since my mother passed away two years ago. So it’s not easy for me to leave just like that. My family is happy with the work that I do with making videos. So far I haven’t had trouble getting people to talk to me and give me interviews, which makes me more sure that I want to continue with journalism.

Renchano Humtsoe has produced 9 stories for us.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

CAPTCHA Code*

Login with Facebook: