Centre claims 99.9% rural electrification, but 1.1 mn houses still in dark
Majority of unelectrified households are from Assam and Uttar Pradesh, where owners were earlier reluctant to set up metered connections, but now are more willing
Electricity is yet to reach at least 1.1 million rural households across states, two years after the Centre claimed to have attained 99.9 per cent electrification under its Saubhagya scheme or Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana.
According to Business Standard report, a majority these households are from Assam and Uttar Pradesh, owners of which were earlier reluctant to set up metered connections, but now are willing to get connections.
Officials said, several states are coming up with new data showing more households that are left to be electrified, even after the expiry of the deadline for the last round of electrification under the Centre’s Saubhagya scheme, in 2021.
The Centre had sanctioned ₹4,100 crore for the fresh round of electrification keeping August 2021 as the deadline. Since then, 400,000 of the newly-identified 1.1 million rural households have been electrified, officials told BS.
Last-mile challenge
The officials, however, said that last mile reach was a challenge in several pockets of the country, especially in areas which have been “left uncensored by the state government or are on contentious land patches.” Besides, areas of which state government or state electricity departments have not submitted proper documentation, have remained out of the ambit of the scheme.
A burning example of one such deviation is Presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu’s ancestral village Uparbeda, which is devoid of electricity and has become a case study after the NDA candidate’s nomination. The local electricity department in Odisha has argued that the hamlet was built on forest land and thus didn’t get official clearance for the construction of power infrastructure.
Data submitted by the Union Ministry of Power in the Rajya Sabha show that no progress has been made in Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur with regards to power connectivity.
Announced in September 2017 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the scheme envisaged complete electrification by December 2018. The scheme was part of the Centre’s Deendayal Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY).
The Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) was entrusted with implementing both the schemes.
Project funding
Drawing an outlay of ₹12,320 crore for the Saubhagya scheme, the Centre provided 60 per cent of the finance to states to provide power connections in rural households. The rest 40 per cent was meant to be borne by the states.
Now, all the schemes including the DDUGJY for rural power reforms and Integrated Power Distribution Scheme (IPDS) for urban areas have been subsumed under the umbrella of the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) launched in 2021.
The DDUGJY was allocated ₹3,103 crore in the Union Budget 2020-21 while the RDSS was allocated ₹7,565 crore in the Budget 2022-23.
