Abstract:
The off-grid rural poor living in remote areas in the northern region of Pakistan. The
uneven surface, varying elevations and availability of water in the area offers an ideal
condition for micro/mini hydropower installations. The study covered technical and
social sustainability of MHP’s in the far flung off grid rural areas of district Swat
and Buner. The detailed questionnaire was designed and field visits were conducted
for 25 functional and 4 malfunctioning MHP’s, and relevant peoples such as
operators and secretaries were interviewed and views of them were noted and
analysis of the questionnaire was done in detail. Three key performance indicators
capacity, number of beneficiary households and the distance from NGS were
analyzed while considering two main factors technical and social in evaluation.
Capacity of the schemes against performance indicates that the projects above 30 kw
are performing better in technical aspects. Socially the schemes with capacity below
or equal to 30 kw are performing well and being easily managed by the community
as the schemes are small and shared by a smaller number of beneficiary households
which results in less disputes. The evaluation of MHPs based upon distances
indicates that technically and socially performance is better as the schemes are closer
to NGS. The people living in remote areas are comparatively less developed and they
can hardly manage and operate these schemes. Technical performance is increasing
as the number of households increase, while in social aspects the performance is
decreasing with increase in households because more people connected to the system
results in more conflicts and disputes. The assessmnent of all these functional MHPs
indicates that the social performance is average and above average and technical
performance is of average. In most of the MHPs present capacity was found lower
than the time of their installations because of miss management and poor planning
which lead to create some technical and social problems. The study concluded that
capacity building of the community is required to better operate and maintain these
schemes by themselves and sense of ownership is needed among the communities.
