Sunita Parale prepares dinner on a chulah under a solar powered light outside ehr house. An NGO put up these lights years ago. Pic/Satej SHinde

Three weeks ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi caused a billion eyebrows to be raised when he announced that all villages in the country have been electrified. Just 20 km from Mumbai, every single one of the 400 homes in five tribal padas or villages in Gorai have yet to see the light, literally. Strangely, while the main road that passes outside the village has electricity poles, there is no official connection inside the homes of these tribals. Permissions have been stuck in a muddle of red tape for decades.