"We are fed up with hollow promises by politicians in the last 20 years. Once elections are over, we continue to spend our evenings in darkness and forget about our plight," says Syamlal Sinha, who lives in Dhanbad's Lalgi Tola which has no electricity.

He said electric poles could be seen at Bodia village in Kanke block in Ranchi district, but sadly no electricity passes through them. The same views are expressed by Savitri Devi of the area.

Successive governments in Jharkhand, led by Babulal Marandi, Arjun Munda, Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren, were pulled up by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for failing to supply power, especially to villages. In one such report (2008), the CAG says, "Due to inability of state power utilities to systematically fund essential projects/schemes...developmental activities in the power sector had not taken place in an organised and comprehensive manner, resulting in shortages, poor quality of supply and frequent interruptions."

However, S N Choudhary, member (distribution) of the Jharkhand State Electricity Board, said in Ranchi that,

"The time frame by which a total of 19,737 villages are to be electrified under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification programme is March, 2010."

So far, he said, electrification work has been finished in 8000 villages. The NTPC and DVC had been engaged in the task at villages under the Santhal Parganas region comprising seven districts. Work is also on in the villages of Lohardaga, Khunti, Simdega, Ranchi and Gumla districts.

The head of Jharkhand Andolankari Morcha, Vinod Kumar, said, "Over 50 per cent of 32,000 villages in Jharkhand don't have electricity". In 2002 the government had promised to electrify 25,000 villages by 2007 in the state's coal belt where 40 per cent of the country's coal reserves are located. Dhanbad's Tundi block alone has 71 villages which have no electricity.

"Baghmara and Topchanchi blocks in Dhanbad are still deprived of electricity," retired engineer, C K Singh, said adding Dhanbad, a district endowed with coal reserves has the potential to generate low-cost power, particularly if power plants could be set up in the vicinity of coal mines.

The situation is no better in the Santhal Parganas region, comprising Deogarh, Dumka, Sahebganj, Jamtara, Pakur and Godda, despite former Chief Minister Shibu Soren and former deputy Chief Minister Stephen Marandi being represented from that region.

"I had been campaigning in the Santhal Parganas and we were using lanterns in the evenings at our work place," CPI (M) politburo member Brinda Karat said. The dismal power situation in Jharkhand continues despite a government document detailing augmenting Jharkhand's power generating capacity. The document contains plans to increase thermal installed capacity by 1260 MW and Hydel Installed Capacity by 130 MW and 2012 was set as the terminal year by which electricity would be provided to each and every rural home.