PM interacts with beneficiaries of rural electrification, targets Congress

The residents of these villages who were connected through a district centre thanked the PM for bringing electricity to their areas

Continuing the aggressive campaign of the Centre’s flagship schemes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with the beneficiaries of the rural electrification drive under the Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY). 

The BJP government electrified 18,000 remaining villages of the 500,000 in a record time of three years in April this year. Rural electrification involves connecting a village with the national grid and powering 10 per cent of the village, including public establishments — schools, hospitals and panchayats. 

In order to provide last-mile access, the Centre announced SAUBHAGYA scheme last year, which aims at providing electricity connection to all 36 million households in urban and rural areas. The PM interacted with districts in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Arunanchal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir. 

The citizens of these villages, who were connected through a district centre, thanked the PM for bringing electricity to their areas. The PM quipped at the villagers from Manipur that they bought TV as soon as they were connected with the electricity grid. In a lighter vein, Modi asked the people Odisha if they watched Hima Das, who won gold in a track event at the World Junior Athletics Championships, now that they have their TVs and power supply. He also interacted with people from Leisang village in Manipur, which was the last among the 18,000 villages, which received power supply.

The PM, however, also used the platforms to hit at earlier governments and also media critics and condemned them for not focusing on villages before BJP started reforms.

“Earlier governments made promises, which they failed to fulfil. Former Congress President (Sonia Gandhi) said all households would be electrified by 2009. But that did not happen even in 2009, 2010 or 2011,” he said.

The PM further said the promises made by earlier governments were not fulfilled because there was not a serious leader, and now they (Opposition and media) are finding faults with schemes and programmes being implemented by the present government. 

“When my government takes its promises seriously, then all efforts are made by the opposition to find shortcomings. I believe that this is the strength of democracy that we try to do good and where there is shortcoming, highlight that and correct it,” he said. 

This is the tenth interaction in the series by the Prime Minister through video conference with the beneficiaries of various government schemes such as Ujjwala, Jan Dhan Yojana.