The untold story of Odanthurai, the Tamil Nadu village that sells electricity
What comes to your mind when you think of a village? Lush green fields with farmers ploughing them, muddy pathways, huts with thatched roofs, water wells and much more. But there is a hamlet in Tamil Nadu that’s not the average Indian village. doesn’t match with the rest of the villages in our country. All residents here live in well-built and sanitised homes. To be precise, this is the first completely sanitised village in India. If you ever do visit this village, you’ll for sure mistake it for a town or city. It produces its own electricity too. Additionally, the panchayat in Odanthurai also sells electricity to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB)! Wondering what the name of the village is? It’s Odanthurai, located in Mettupalayam, Coimbatore, nestled at the foothills of the Nilgiris. It is a panchayat with 12 villages and a population of less than 10,000.
How it all started
There was a point of time when Odanthurai wasn’t what it is today. The locals lived in huts, had to fight for water and lacked basic facilities such as electricity. Many residents were forced to leave the community and move elsewhere because of their poor lifestyle and a lack of a reliable source of income. However, there was a 360-dgree turnaround in the situation from 1996 when the panchayat came up with the idea of operating a windfarm. To begin their project in Udumalai, one of the villages, the panchayat obtained a bank loan in 2005–2006. The 350-kilowatt windfarm now produces 67,5000 units of electricity each year! Talk about being the boss! Additionally, it makes an annual profit of 20 lakh rupees by selling up to 2 lakh power units to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. The Odanthurai Panchayat uses this money to pay back the 15 million bank loan.
Odanthurai: A story of success
Apart from electricity generation, Odanthurai progressed on many other fronts. The villagers were provided with well-built homes through the state’s Green India Scheme. All homes were installed with solar panels on the rooftops. Overhead tanks were installed, and bore wells were cleaned to address water problems. Ninety per cent of the funds came from the government and 10% from the local community.
Children had to travel to neighbouring places for education owing to a lack of schools in Odanthurai. To address this, an active effort was taken to construct schools. A poverty alleviation programme was also put into place to aid those who were struggling with it. What’s more, Odanthurai is a national leader in self-employment and energy education. Now, that’s a story to be told, indeed.
The man who changed the fate of Odanthurai
The story of Odanthurai sounds like a magic, isn’t it? But the truth is that the success of this village is the fruit of the tireless efforts of a man named R. Shanmugam. He was elected as the Sarpanch in 1996. Apart from serving as the president of the panchayat for 10 years, he also assisted his wife when she the president from 2006 to 2016.