Target date for electricity for all likely to be brought forward to Dec 31

With the government providing power connectivity to all villages in the country, the next step would be to supply electricity under the Saubhagya programme.

Union power minister R K Singh says this requires consumer willingness to take connections. And, that the government might advance the target date for achieving 24x7 power for all by three months to December 31. The initial deadline under the Rs 163 billion Saubhagya scheme was March 31, 2019.

“We signed agreements with the states in 2015 that we want 24x7 supply and all states are signatories,” he recalled at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Centre, he said, had given enough funds to strengthen the distribution and transmission systems but distribution companies were not keeping up the pace because of their financial stress.

The government estimates 28,000 Mw additional power is needed to meet the demand created through electrification, though there would be a multiplier effect, too.  “After reaching villages, reaching to households depends on the willingness of consumers. We have finished the first stage,” Singh said. 

According to A K Bhalla, the secretary, power, a total of 31.3 million households remain to be electrified. On an average, 82 per cent of households in villages have been electrified. Bhalla said there was sufficient power (225 Gw) to meet the demand.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a tweet announced that 100 per cent rural electrification had been achieved. In that last lap, the highest number of unelectrified villages were in Odisha (3,474), followed by 2,892 in Assam, 2,747 in Bihar and 2,525 in Jharkhand. 

A government presentation said for 90 villages in Arunachal Pradesh and 12 in Manipur, head-loading of material was required over one to 10 days. 

Material transportation by helicopters was needed for 35 villages in Jammu & Kashmir and 16 in Arunachal Pradesh. Due to inaccessibility and non-feasibility of the conventional grid system, 2,762 villages had to be provided off-grid solutions.

Singh said there was a five-fold increase in 2017-18 over 2013-14 in the number of free electricity connections provided to Below Poverty Line households. Expenditure on rural electrification had more than doubled to Rs 248.9 billion from 2014-15 to 2017-18, compared to Rs 108.7 billion in the four-year period starting 2010-11.