Madhesh’s landless no longer risk their lives for electricity

Last-mile electrification drive has transformed daily life of communities long excluded from the national grid.

Until a year ago, 30-year-old Pano Sada of Bateshwor Rural Municipality in Dhanusha would run for cover at the faintest sound of a whistle. In her Musahar settlement, a cluster of mud houses with thatched roofs standing beside the road, the whistle meant danger. It meant that officials from the Nepal Electricity Authority were nearby, making surprise visits to catch people stealing electricity.