What is the issue?
- Recently, the Union government had declared that all villages across India have been electrified.
- While all villages have been electrified, as much as 17% of the 18 crore rural households remain without power connections.
What is the current electrification scenario?
- Village Electrification - With electricity reaching Manipur Leisang village recently, every village in India is said have been successfully electrified.
- This hence completes the mission of the union government piloted “Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana” (DDU-GJY).
- Significantly, more than 18,000 villages have been electrified since 2014.
- But this doesn’t mean all rural houses have been provided with power connections, as merely 10% coverage is sufficient to call a village electrified.
- Household Electrification - As much as 17% of the 18 crore rural households remain without power connections.
- Hence, the government has already initiated its “PM Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana” (Saubhagya), which aims for universal household electrification.
- It is indeed a big achievement that every village has been electrified, but the task ahead for electrifying all houses is far bigger a challenge.
- Additionally, India’s rural poverty is so striking that the poorer households may not be able to sustain an electric connection even under heavy subsidy.
What does the statistics say?
- Progress over the years -
- Quality of supply - As per government sources, as of December 2017, only six out of 30 states had 24 hour-power supply in rural areas.
- Over 50% of electrified rural households in UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal don’t even get 12 hours of supply in a day.
- Households without a connection - UP tops the list with a striking 44% of the population living without electricity.
Variations among connections across states
- Electrification across countries -
