A group of friends who had come from Hyderabad to spend Diwali in Ranchi were surprised to find the roads of the capital dark on the eve of the festival.

Their queries proved to be an embarrassment, for I could not give the usual explanation.

That we Ranchi people had got used to staying without power seemed too frivolous a statement; so I preferred to remain silent about the matter.

This incident, however, set me thinking about the future of the state. Jharkhand, as we know, is a mineral-rich state, which has been inviting foreign investors since its inception.

Our main drawback for setting up industries has been “power”.

Jharkhand, like many other states of India, produces power that falls short of actual requirement.

The condition of the rural sector is equally bad, with less than 40 per cent of the villages having got electricity.

Not that the state lacks coal, or for that matter water resources. But power generation has always taken a backseat.

Coal, the major raw material for thermal power, often gets soaked during the monsoons and the non-perennial rivers are mere trickles in summer, thereby attributing to power failures.

But is there no other alternative to this power crisis?

One aspect that we all tend to overlook is that the state has also been endowed with alternative resources as well.

Jharkhand, which lies within the tropics, gets a fair amount of sunshine throughout the year. This non-conventional, pollution free, renewable resource, known as solar energy, can and should be tapped to its potential.

Generation of electricity by using solar cells is perhaps the most prized modern invention. After wind power, the second fastest growing source of energy is solar cells.

During the early 1990s, I happened to visit Pittoragarh in the remote Kumaun Himalayas and was surprised to find the entire village lit with solar cells.

The objective is not to compare one state with another, but to enlighten and encourage our planners to look beyond conventional energy sources.

Jharkhand is one of the few states in India that can boast of having almost all types of known minerals.

Why should we then let power shortage impede its development? A stable governance can perhaps guide the state to look towards a brighter future.

Debjani Roy is a lecturer at Nirmala College, Ranchi