These gharats or watermills have long been used by thousands of villages in the Himalayan region in a process that involves jets of water striking a bladed wheel and causing it to spin, thereby activating a grinding stone. Now thanks to Dr Anil K Joshi chairman of the Himalayan Environment Studies and Conservation Organisation, and the Indian Army's Northern Command , these watermills are being put to far greater auxillary use-illuminating villages where electrification was still a distant dream 57 years after Independence.