Power to the people? Not in some Surat Thani villages
A 60-household village in Surat Thani’s Phra Saeng district has lived without electricity for the past three decades, as their appeals to state agencies for power supply fell on deaf ears.
Following public complaints that some villages had to make do without a basic necessity of modern life, The Nation’s Suwannee Bundisak visited Ban Bang Nam Yen (Moo 7) in Tambon Sai Kheung to investigate and found that villagers had indeed lived without electricity for nearly 30 years.
Resident Pranee Meesai, 69, said neither she nor her neighbours had any electrical appliances and mainly used lamps and wax candles to provide light at night. Sometime they also had the use of rechargeable devices, which they charged with the help of friends in other villages, providing some light for children to do their homework at night.
Cooking was fuelled by bonfires, she added.
As their previous petitions for power supply had been ignored by the authorities, Pranee urged relevant authorities to help them.
A few better-off residents have set up bamboo poles to link electricity cables along a three-kilometre distance to their homes.
However, many still had to get by without power and the village road was in need of repair, Pranee said.