Electrifying India: the day rural Hotasar finally saw the light | Vidhi Doshi

Celebrations and plans to buy washing machines greeted the arrival of power in Hotasar, Rajasthan, as India's ambitious electrification plan gathers pace

When a government official first came to Hotasar in western India, the villagers shooed him away. He had come to tell them an engineer was on his way and the village would get its first electric light bulb within months. "Bring light? To Hotasar? It's impossible," they told him. Others had promised the same, but plans to electrify the village had repeatedly failed.

Hotasar, a small village of about 200 people in the Rajasthani desert, is very difficult to reach. In April last year, it was one of 18,452 Indian villages without electricity. In the past few months, that number has fallen to 12,100 under a flagship programme launched by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.