14 years and counting: Arippa in Keralam awaits electricity
Over 250 families in the Arippa forest region of Kerala have been living without electricity for 14 years due to a bureaucratic dispute between the Forest and Revenue departments. Despite receiving land title deeds, residents remain unable to access basic utility services.
Why it matters
It highlights the human cost of administrative gridlock and the challenges faced by marginalized communities in accessing basic infrastructure.
As Keralam stares at a potential crisis in the power sector stemming from inadequate power generation caused by a deficient monsoon, the newly formed UDF government is under fire for undeclared power outages during peak consumption hours.
But there is a group of people in the State forced to live in perpetual darkness.
A resident using a torchlight outside his hutment to check for wild boar movement. | Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran
Shrouded beneath the damp, emerald canopy of the Kulathupuzha forest range in Kollam district, Arippa unfolds as a landscape of quiet defiance. This is where the pristine wilderness of the Western Ghats gives way to a fragile tapestry of weathered blue-tarpaulin hutments built on contested land.
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