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.

When the warning came, Sada would dash into her two-room home, quickly unhooking the wire that ran from the nearest electric pole into her home. For a few minutes, her heart would pound until the danger passed. Then relief followed, when she was not caught.

But not every day ended in relief. “Sometimes, we were caught, and the officials took away the wires and bulbs,” Sada recalls. “We lived with this fear and these risky arrangements for years.”

Everything changed last year. The same officials who once raided her home returned, this time not with threats but with a gift. They installed a sub-meter box in her home, finally giving her legal access to electricity.

Her life transformed almost overnight. Now she charges her mobile phone, runs a small fan, and connects to the outside world through a wireless Wi-Fi receiver. Married off at 16, Sada now has two children, and she lights two bulbs every evening—something she once thought impossible. For her, electricity means something even more personal: it allows her to make regular video calls to her husband, who works in Madras, India.

“Life is comfortable with electricity,” she says, her face breaking into a smile.

Her son, 12-year-old Dipesh, is even more excited about the change. A sixth grader at Shree Kali Janajyoti School, he spends his evenings watching Motu Patlu cartoons on his mother’s phone. “I can do my homework at night, and nowadays, I do it regularly,” he says, proudly.

Until recently, children like Dipesh had only kerosene lamps to study by. When Bateshwor was first connected to the national electricity grid five years ago, many Musahar households were excluded because they had no land ownership certificates. Without land, they could not install sub-meters.

That pushed the community towards “bansi”—the local term for hooking a naked wire directly onto the mainline. For generations, families relied on this dangerous practice, ignoring the shocks and the ever-present risk of fire. “My father started stealing electricity. Then my mother learned. Now even I know how it’s done,” Dipesh admits, before adding with relief: “But we don’t have to do it anymore.”

Thirty-five-year-old Jalsi Kumari Sada, who has lived in Bateshwor for 16 years, finally received legal access just a month ago. “I have my own meter box now,” she says with pride. For her, electricity has brought a sense of safety too: “We are not afraid of snakes anymore because we light a bulb outside the house.”

Her future plans suddenly feel bigger. She dreams of buying her own mobile phone and perhaps even a television. “If everything goes well, I will watch Maithili movies at home,” she says.

A concrete house sports a DishHome antenna near the entrance in another part of the village. Its owner, 50-year-old Sumendri Devi Mallik, recalls how she once suffered repeated shocks while hooking wires from the mainline.

“We didn’t think much about it. We wanted light and television, and we lived with the shocks. That was our routine,” she says. Today, she no longer risks her life to watch TV—she has her own electricity connection.

These stories are part of Nepal’s wider last-mile electrification effort—the painstaking process of extending the national grid to underserved and marginalised communities. Globally, such initiatives are seen as a cornerstone of sustainable development, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, improving living standards, and opening doors to economic opportunity.

The changes in the village are visible. With electricity, households experience a dramatic improvement in welfare: children can study after dark, families use fans in the sweltering summer, and farmers can more easily access irrigation pumps.

In Lahan, farmers used to grow only “parwal”, pointed gourd. Now, they grow multiple crops, thanks to irrigation.

Nepal’s own electrification journey has accelerated in recent years. In 2015–16, only 58 percent of the population had access to electricity. By 2021–22, that figure jumped to 89.7 percent, and today it has reached 99 percent, according to the Nepal Electricity Authority. The number of registered electricity consumers has nearly doubled in the last decade, rising from 2.97 million in 2015–16 to 5.93 million today.

But the numbers can be misleading. Reaching 99 percent does not mean every household enjoys electricity equally. Small pockets of poverty—families without land, marginalised communities, and those living in informal settlements—remained excluded.

To address this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Royal Norwegian Embassy partnered with the Electricity Authority to ensure that no community is left behind. Their project focuses on mainstreaming gender and social inclusion into the utility’s operations, with last-mile electrification as a key pillar.

“Under the project, we have installed more than 1,200 sub-meters in Madhesh Province,” says Jagannath Jha, chief of the Gaushala Distribution Centre in Mahottari district. “We are working specifically in areas where marginalised groups were not connected to the mainstream system.”

In Bateshwor, 113 meters were added in the Musahar settlement, free of charge. “Earlier, they used to hook electricity, and this caused massive leakage in the system,” Jha explains. Families without land certificates are now required to pay a nominal Rs1,000 collateral deposit to secure their connection.

For others who have land ownership certificates, a meter-box costs Rs2,500 plus a service charge of Rs100 and does not require a Rs1,000 collateral deposit.

For development experts, the risks of delay were clear. “When we surveyed Ward 5 of Bateshwor two years ago, almost every house was lit through hooking,” says Uttim Lal Pandit, enterprise development officer of ADB in Madhesh Province. “The risks were enormous. These homes are made of straw and mud. A small spark could have set off devastating fires.”

Today, about 50 households in Ward 5 have free sub-meters, out of a total of 156 homes. Many of the families who once believed they would never legally access electricity are now proud bill-paying customers.

The change is already evident across the district. Last year, Dhanushadham in Dhanusha was declared an electricity theft-free municipality, thanks to a campaign that provided free meters to marginalised and poor households.

Reducing theft also means improving efficiency. In Madhesh Province, distribution leakage stood at 14.2 percent in 2024–25. The target for this fiscal year is to cut it down to 11.9 percent.

Ten years ago, the leakage figure nationwide was at an alarming 25.78 percent.

For Madhesh’s marginalised families, however, the numbers are secondary. What matters is the light that now glows in their homes after sunset.

For children, it means study time no longer ends when daylight fades. For women, it brings safety and dignity. For families, it opens the possibility of entertainment, communication, and even small business opportunities.