Times of India | 2 months ago | 02-09-2022 | 01:26 am
Margao It was a bright Ganesh Chaturthi for three families at Nagurma in Khola of Canacona taluka — the brightest they’ve ever seen.Members and extended members of the Velip family rejoiced and shed tears of joy as three houses belonging to brothers Ratnakar, Ramesh and Suresh and their families received electricity connections for the very first time on Tuesday.“We are so happy, not just for ourselves, but that we were able to light up our Lord Ganesha too,” Reema Ratnakar Velip told TOI. The family is observing Chaturthi for five days.“Every single day, my younger brother would ask me when we would get an electricity connection. He is thrilled today,” she added.Reema initially studied in her maternal uncle’s house — that had electricity — until Class IV, and then overcame several difficulties completing her studies under a kerosene lamp in her own house.“I would try and complete as much of my studying before it turned dark. I would also make my brother and younger cousins start their homework no sooner they got home from school, and force them to complete their studies before sunset,” she added. The wiring in the three houses has been completed, she said, and the families are now looking forward to small luxuries like using a mixer/grinder and having a fan above their heads.During small celebrations in the house, when the families had to cook multiple dishes, they would have to go to a neighbour’s house to use their grinder.Although they received a solar connection recently, it had its limitations, and wouldn’t allow them to use a grinder or charge two phones at one time. The families tried unsuccessfully in the past to get electricity connections for their households that fall in Quepem constituency. On Thursday, the families wholeheartedly attributed their illuminated Chaturthi and brighter days ahead to Quepem MLA Altone D’Costa.D’Costa, a first-time MLA, said he made the payment for the installation of 42 electricity poles for the electricity connection to reach the families before the assembly elections. Then power minister Nilesh Cabral too helped, he said.Incidentally, exactly a year ago, Frank Viegas, recently elected as panch member of Chinchinim panchayat, was visiting friends in Khola during Chaturthi when his friend took him to wish the Velip family.He noticed that the decorations were subdued sans any lighting, and then found that electricity connections hadn’t yet reached the households. He then asked D’Costa, who was at the time a social worker, to look into it. “They families will now be able to perform rituals with proper lighting. We don’t want to do politics but want to work for the village and uplift those in need. Only then will the village and our constituency progress,” he said.
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