VELSHI: About half the people in India don't have access to electricity, but deep in a forest in southern India one small village has power all day, every day. CNN's Mallika Kapur shares one simple thing that's lighting up the town.</s>MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beyond urban India, life moves slowly. Many villages are off the beaten track and off the grid. These villages in a remote corner of southern Indian have no running water, no roads, no sanitation. What they do have is sunlight, lots of it, all year around. India sees solar power as a solution to its massive energy deficit. Currently, 450 million -- that's almost half its population -- lives without electricity. "The government put up power cables on the highway," says this farmer, "but not in my village. I lived in the dark until I learned about solar lamps." The two lights in his home are thanks to SELCO, a private company that provides renewable energy options to rural households at an affordable price.</s>SARAH ALEXANDER, SELCO: The goal is profit, yes, but, you know, we always tell people that we're in between an NGO and we're in between a corporate. We 're socially driven. I mean, if tomorrow we were to choose -- if you were to ask SELCO to choose between lighting up 300 homes and doing an institutional installation, we would do the 300 homes.</s>KAPUR: SELCO's representatives go from home to home to explain their product. They then connect customers with local banks to finance it for the villagers. The technology costs 7,000 rupees, about $150. In addition to giving banks business, it also gives local entrepreneurs an opportunity. For 27-year-old Mohan (ph), batteries mean business. During the day, he charges solar batteries at home. As the sun sets, he takes them to the local market where he rents them out to street hawkers. This man</s>VELSHI: Great story.
Solar Energy Brings Electricity to Indian Village