Going by the official numbers, nearly 85 per cent of the country's 5.87 lakh villages have been electrified. This sounds impressive. But the fact that one lakh villages and nearly half of the total rural households do not have access to a basic necessity like electric power, tells a different tale. What is worse, the pace of rural electrification has been slowing down due to a consistent decline in the fresh investment in this sector. | |
| As a result, it is now starkly clear that the goal set in the government's common minimum programme, of achieving 100 per cent rural electrification by 2008, seems impossible to achieve. So far, only eight states claim to have achieved power connectivity of all villages, using the new definition which requires linking of at least 10 per cent of households and all public places (panchayats, schools and health centres) with power distribution transformers. |
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| The laggard states from the power connectivity viewpoint include not only the expected ones like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Assam but also others like West Bengal, where less than 20 per cent of the rural households have power connections. Worse still, in these states, as also in the ones claiming 100 per cent connectivity, the supply of power is unreliable and of poor quality. |
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| Wide voltage fluctuations impose unnecessary additional costs, and cumbersome and long procedures for getting power connections and poor maintenance and repair services act as major disincentives for rural households to opt for power connection. What needs to be realised is that access to electricity is a key driver of economic development and poverty alleviation. |
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| Power supply being a state subject, the state governments are squarely to blame for this dismal state of affairs. The role of the Centre in funding the rural electrification programme is limited, though it does provide some financial support. The bulk of whatever little the states invest in this sector goes for power generation and transmission. |
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| The state agencies seem uninterested in investing in village electrification and pump-set energisation as these are inherently unremunerative ventures""due largely to populist power pricing for farmers. Therefore, what is urgently needed is a series of rural power sector reforms in areas like regulation, tariff fixation, subsidy and market development. |
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| While regulatory reforms are essential to encourage private sector investment and community involvement in rural power management is desirable, pricing reforms are a must to ensure the financial viability of power supply systems. |
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| Free rural power in many states is causing more harm than good and, considering the bad quality of supply, does not leave even the rural sector happy. Populism should give way to a realistic approach towards the expansion of rural power connectivity. |
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