Myanmar: Tensions Rise as Myanmar Turns to Dams for Power

Nov 24, 2014 | South China Morning Post
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When a village in the conflict-torn hills of eastern Myanmar was asked to pay authorities more than US$10,000 to plug into an electricity grid, families put themselves in debt to find the cash.

Ten months later children there are still squinting over their homework by candlelight and dinners are cooked on open fires as the work to connect their homes to power lies unfinished, beset by delays and bureaucracy.

Roughly 70 per cent of Myanmar's population still does not have access to power, so the once pariah state, which already relies on hydropower to generate half of its electricity, is again turning to its rivers in new plans to harness energy from dams.