The Scrappy State of India's Electricity

"90 percent of Bihar, India's poorest state, has no electricity. Yet this has not stopped people [from] using mobile phones to connect to the world.

Arvind Tandon, 28, charges phones in his cramped shop where he sells and repairs clocks and radios. The use of a car battery, which also powers an electric fan on the counter, is available for Rs5 a time (about 13 cents). He proudly holds up a mobile phone connected to his contraption, which serves at least 150 customers each day. Mr Tandon started this supplementary business a year ago and now it makes up nearly half his revenues."
Financial Times, 6 August, 2007

Bihar is not alone. Most of Maharastra, India's second most prosperous state, went without electricity for up to 15 hours per day in 2006. Because India does not produce enough electricity to meet demand, the government cuts power for hours every day in nearly all villages, rich or poor, in a process called 'load sharing'. Only areas like Bombay get 24-7 electricity, because they receive power from a private company (Reliance). As soon as you get outside the city, you start seeing billboard advertisements for Batteries and Inverters (pictured), so people can still power fans and fridges when the power is cut. It is safe to say that while some parts of India are without electrical access, almost all of India is without regular electrical access.

Things didn't used to be this bad a decade ago, when villages only got power cut for a couple hours each day, if at all. However, India's economy is growing and transforming far faster than it's government is constructing new power plants. So even as India goes high tech, the lights are going out.