Press Trust of India
Dehradun | March 4
After lighting up border villages of Jammu and Kashmir, watermills, which had been in use in the mountains since time immemorial, would now remove the darkness in India’s North-eastern region.
In an ambitious plan, Hesco, a Dehradun-based voluntary organization, would install watermills in Nagaland and Manipur as part of its ‘Technology-for-Peace’ Programme in association with the Indian Army.
The watermill is an eco-friendly device that can harness water power to grind wheat and generate 5 to 8 KW of electricity. At present, there are two lakh watermills in the Himalayan region. According to an estimate prepared by Hesco, watermills can generate 2500mw of power in the Himalayan region which is also seen as an answer to big dams which often uproot thousands of people and are very expensive.
Hesco director Anil P Joshi has devised a very simple, inexpensive and environment-friendly technology kit that can upgrade these watermills into micro-Hydel project to produce electricity.
Hesco is also running a training centre at its office at Mehuwala area of Dehradun. Already, people from Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have taken training in watermills.
“We are now focusing our attention towards Nagaland and Manipur which are also remote states of the country. We will install new watermills in these states,” Joshi said.
Hesco has acquired expertise in watermill technology. Already, the organisation, in a joint venture with the Indian Army, has installed nearly 360 watermills in border villages of Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the areas are badly hit by terrorism.
Villages in areas like Kupwara, Barmulla, Kargil, Batalikdrass, Poonch and Rajouri had benefited by watermill campaign, Joshi said.
Last month, Hesco installed its first watermill at haipe village of Arunachal Pradesh. “This watermill is working very well,” Joshi said, adding more watermills would be installed in near future.
