Commotion as another Indian family is connected

I am at the frontier of India’s electricity network. In West Bengal they call it “current” – and its flowing to entirely new place, with consequences well beyond India’s poor.

There is a commotion, a crowd, a man in a hard hat is climbing up a brand new electricity pole in Purander village in the Sunderbans.

Every couple of minutes there is a pause as a cycle rickshaw attempts to cross the path which is blocked by a surfeit of wire. Another family is being connected into India’s electricity grid.

The main power line only reached these families six months ago as a result of a government push named after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to provide electricity to all.

Each household that wants a connection has to shell out 3000 rupees, or £40, for the final link from pole to plug socket. Palan Halder is the twentieth connection in a village of 350 homes.

But there is a waiting list of 55. The neighbours appear to be playing loud bhangra music from next door to display their power status.

Still, the petty jealousies are not widespread here. It seems like half the village has turned up in his garden to see the big switch-on.

When it comes, and his beaming wife grins at the glow of her living room light, the electricity is given a Hindu blessing, and children are fed ladoos.

Now their household will be lit by lightbulbs, cooled by a fan, entertained by a television as well as offer Palan’s wife the chance to earn extra money by stitching saries using an electric sewing machine.

So Palan Halder must be proud of himself as he joins the ranks of India’s 500 million electricity haves and leaves the 500 million have nots.

“I don’t like that fact,” he tells me. “I want to see that everyone has electricity.”

And he brandishes the yellow card that shows his membership of the electric elite.