Bihar: Gaya, Patna, and Purnea

In early February, my team and I visited the state of Bihar to conduct a field survey for two village we are hoping to electrify. The trip brought us to the state capital Patna, Gaya district, and Purnea district as we visited the villages, evaluated community outreach partners, and saw existing off-grid solar projects on the ground. Given Bihar's reputation as a lawless and underdeveloped state, we were happy to complete the trip without being kidnapped by Naxalites - the Maoist insurgents active in the area. In retrospect, we were pleasantly surprised that state was nearly not as defunct popular lore led us to believe (although we did have to spend a night in the Patna train station after one of our trains was delayed by eight hours).

That being said, much of the state still lives in poverty: it is humbling to visit villages without access to the electrical grid and where the value of the camera around my neck could easily be more than a household's annual income. The upside of the trip was that we were able to see solar starting to spread to off-grid areas through local NGOs, startups, and module distributers. These photos don't show much solar, mostly because I don't find solar panels or LED lights to be terribly visually compelling, but hopefully off-grid electricity access can be the topic of a future photo essay. In the mean time, here are some scenes from my travels. Enjoy! 

A rickshaw driver pulls a woman through evening traffic in Purnea, Bihar.

A street food vendor on the side of the road in Purnea, Bihar.

An elderly man in Bahsa Pipra, Gaya, Bihar.

Boys peep into a small window opening to see our team reviewing the village map.

Two boys from Bahsa Pipra village, Gaya district, Bihar.

Mapping out the village boundaries in Bahsa Pipra village, Bihar.

A map of Bahsa Pipra village in Gaya, Bihar. The man who had the map told us that few maps of the area existed, and that he wouldn't give this copy to us even if we offered 10,000,000 rupees.

A women's self-help group meets in Badil Bigha village, Gaya, Bihar. The self-help group provides women with savings accounts and small loans - creating a link between the village and the formal banking system.

A rickshaw driver pulls a passenger along the road in Patna, the capital city of Bihar.

A man lights up one of the many rows of candles in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.

A sitting Buddhist figurine in Bodh Gaya, the location where Siddhartha attained enlightenment.

a quickr pickr post