Tibet's least populated village finally gets electricity

Beijing: A sparsely populated remote township with just 32 residents in Tibet has been connected to the state electricity grid, local officials said.

The 15-km-long 10-kilovolt power line, which took five months to complete, is connected to remote Yulmed Township in Luntse County, Shannan City, through 108 electric poles over a 5,000-metre-high mountain, the contractor, a Xining-based electric power company in neighbouring Qinghai Province said.

Yulmed has an average elevation of 3,650 metres above sea level.

In 2008, the local government built a small hydropower station, but it failed to meet increasing power demands, due to improved living standards of the residents, and power outages were frequent, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.