Way beyond the rugged mountains and their narrow and steep turns, lies the mesmerizing beauty of a far off land where the mythical people of Kalash live. The beauty of the region and its people is renowned; what isn’t renowned are the advanced projects that betray the backward perception of the area.
Right from where the main bazaar of Chitral begins, a very beautiful but narrow path, with patches of carpeted road that keep appearing every few miles, goes straight to Bumboret Valley. Keeping in mind the long load-shedding schedules for rural areas, we didn't hope to see a single torched bulb in the area – but we were wrong. The winding roads that are filled with the echoes of the nearby gushing river come to a halt at a place where several streams pour down into the river. This is the spot where the community is generating power for its own use.
More than 700 hundred families run three micro hydel projects in the Kalash area, set up with the help of the EU’s partnership with the Sarhad rural development program. These projects are literally co-owned by the community members.
These projects are producing almost 400 KV of electricity and serving the whole area. The interesting part of this whole story is that the land used to set up these projects was provided by the residents of the village. Not just this, they are capable of producing enough power to run their households, and to power small shops and other small businesses.
The quiet town of Bumboret is much better in the evening than most of the urban towns that submerge in darkness after sunset. In Bumboret, small yellow or white lights illuminate the wooden fenced verandas as the sun goes down.
The residents were not only happy to have a life where they were not dependent on any electricity supplying company, their manners were also self-reassuring. They had set up these projects with the help of some international and local organizations and now they were running them on their own, maintaining them with their newly acquired skills. Since the weather here is more than comfortable in summers, the power demand is limited but they do need power supply for other purposes in the village. The compact stores with the adverts of different cellular recharging cards, the posters of washing machines at sale, they were all proof that the Kalash people are running numerous gadgets on this self-produced electricity.
The locals are well aware of the fact that there is an absolute dearth of electricity all over the country and they do value the small projects they have. The darkness that defined the whole valley once with bad climate hitting the area anytime and an ever interrupted power supply, is history for the residents of this region.
The responsibility for keeping the small reservoirs clean and well-maintained is shouldered by the entire community. The micro canals take their course up to the turbines where the electricity generation house has been set up. One or two people can always be seen hovering around the machines. Witnessing the enthusiasm and sense of pride the community feels towards this project reinforces the importance of community run projects.
Since we have local governments in the area now, it can be hoped that the true democratic spirit would be invoked to incorporate local brains and skills to overcome the challenges faced by the community. The more we implement locally produced ideas and projects, the greater the chance of their sustainability, and the more such projects are bound to stay, compared to the schemes developed in Peshawar or in the federal capital.
Such projects are a huge inspiration for other villages and adjoining areas that are dealing with similar issues that could be dealt with on the local level. People who belong to the soil and are more aware of their problems and hence more capable and willing to tackle them, than the rulers sitting miles away in an absolute different setting.