Completion of electrification in all villages of the country: Modi

The Central Government has declared the finish up of electrification of all villages in the country. Leisang in Senapati district, with 19 families, now joins the other 5.97 lakh inhabited villages that have been officially linked to the national grid.

When the NDA government launched its version of the village electrification scheme — the Rs 76,000 crore, Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) — there were an estimated 18,452 unelectrified villages. An additional 1,275 villages were added to the list subsequently. Electrification of 5.77 lakh villages had been achieved over the years by previous governments. According to the 2011 Census, there are 5, 97,463 villages in the country.

“Leisang village in Manipur, like the thousands of other villages across India has been powered and empowered!” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted Sunday.

I salute the efforts of all those who worked tirelessly on the ground, including the team of officials, the technical staff and all others, to make this dream of a #PowerfulIndia a reality. Their efforts today will help generations of Indians in the coming years. pic.twitter.com/t8WjZgpNuT

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 29, 2018

While the task of “village electrification” may have been accomplished, an estimated 3.14 crore rural households are still without any access to electricity — about 17 percent of the total 17.99 crore rural households.

Around 25.64 percent of rural households in Bihar, 44.2 percent in Uttar Pradesh, 43.3 percent in Assam, 52.25 percent in Jharkhand and 36.34 percent in Odisha do not have any access to electricity, according to estimates made available on the Ministry of Power’s official website on April 29.

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According to norms, at least 10 per cent of households of such a village should have access to electricity through the basic infrastructure established. The definition does not mention the actual electricity connection for every household or its supply.