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India fully electrified after the last village ‘Manipur’s Leisang’ gets power
On April 28, 2018 Leisang in Manipur, became the last village to be added to the national power grid in India. Following that achievement the whole country celebrated on that day after the target to bring electricity to all villages was achieved. Village electrification targets of the Modi government under ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna’ (DDUGJY) have been achieved well before time.
The rural electrification scheme, to supply power to 18,452 census villages of the country that had never seen power since Independence, has been one of the pet schemes of the BJP led NDA government at the Centre. In his 2015 Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi announced that his government would supply power to all the remaining villages in the next 1,000 days but fulfilled the target in 987 days.
After this success, the Prime Minister tweeted that “Saturday 28 april would be “remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India”. He said the Union Government, State agencies and all other stakeholders involved directly or indirectly in this program deserve appreciation and applause for putting in unprecedented efforts to ensure completion of task within the targeted time frame.
Shri Narendra Modi further tweeted, “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”. “We fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever”, he said, announcing every village in the country was “powered and empowered”.
BJP National President Shri Amit Shah said, “Today, the entire nation is celebrating power for every single village while the Congress is mourning the loss of power for one family.”
Former Minister of Power and presently the Minister of Railways and Coal Shri Piyush Goyal wrote, “Under the decisive leadership of PM @NarendraModi India has finally been able to electrify all its villages before the set target date. With elimination of darkness from the lives of fellow Indian villagers, we commit ourselves to building a new and #PowerfulIndia.”
Minister of Power and New & Renewable Energy Shir R. K. Singh said, “PM @NarendraModi made a promise from the rampart of the Red Fort on 15th Aug 2015, to electrify all unelectrified villages. We have electrified all the villages reported by the states & achieved the milestone 12 days before the deadline. Thank you Prime Minister. #PledgeRedeemed”
He said we congratulate the thousands of officers and staffs of Ministry of Power of Government of India and DISCOMS of the States for achieving this huge milestone of connecting every village in the country well within time and making the PM Shri Narendra Modi’s dream a reality.
Villager Surjit Singh Ningthoujam, who runs computer literacy programmes in the remote district of Manipur, where the last village to receive electricity is located, said progress in the area will now be visible. “When electricity comes, people usually buy a TV and that will totally change their lives. It is also a hilly area, so with lights people can move from place to place even at night-time,” he said.
The government has said all of India’s 180m rural Indian households will have electricity by 2019. About 82% have electricity as of 30 April, 2018, according to its tracker.
It is worthwhile to mention that the progress of village electrification in three years from 2012-13 to 2014-15, prior to commencement of ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna’ on an average was only 1730 villages per year, including lowest ever figure of 1197 villages in 2013-14.
To provide power connection to India’s 180m households the BJP led NDA Government has already launched ‘Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana’- ‘Saubhagya’ to provide last mile connectivity and service connections to all remaining households in both rural and urban areas to achieve universal household electrification. All the remaining habitations, hamlets, Dhanis, Majras, Tolas including households attached to urban settlements would be covered under ‘Saubhagya’.
India is doing “extremely well” on electrification: WORLD BANK
India is doing “extremely well” on electrification with nearly 85 per cent of the country’s population having access to electricity, the World Bank has said in its report on May 4, 2018. The report said that nearly 85 per cent of the country’s population now has access to electricity said Foster, lead World Bank author of the latest report on Energy Progress.
“In absolute terms, India is doing more on electrification than any other countries. Thirty million a year, is really an astounding performance and it stands out from the crowd,” Foster said.
“You are already well over 80 per cent, so you’re getting into the more difficult aspects of electrification: the more remote population, the harder to reach people,” she explained.
Referring to India’s tremendous electrification effort, the report said it expects 250 million people gaining electricity access between now and the early 2020s, when the country reaches full access.
The rapid growth of electricity access in India is propelled by the country’s USD 2.5 billion electrification programmes to reach universal electrification, the report said.
@narendramodi
“28th April 2018 will be remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India. Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever! I am delighted that every single village of India now has access to electricity”.
@ AmitShah
“BJP president Amit Shah tweeted: “Today, the entire nation is celebrating power for every single village while the Congress is mourning the loss of power for one family.”
@nitin_gadkari
The biggest life altering journey is the one from darkness to illumination. Congratulations @narendramodi ji for achieving 100 percent village electrification and transforming the lives of 18k villagers who continued to live in darkness n apathy. #PowerfulIndia
@ Prakash Javadekar
“After 70 years of independence, #Electricity now reached all Indian villages because of 4 years focused efforts of @narendramodi Government”.
@ Piyush Goyal
“Under the decisive leadership of PM @NarendraModi India has finally been able to electrify all its villages before the set target date. With elimination of darkness from the lives of fellow Indian villagers, we commit ourselves to building a new and #PowerfulIndia.”
@RajKSinghIndia
PM @NarendraModi made a promise from the rampart of the Red Fort on 15th Aug 2015, to electrify all unelectrified villages. We have electrified all the villages reported by the states & achieved the milestone 12 days before the deadline. Thank you Prime Minister. #PledgeRedeemed.
“Saubhagya” to ensure electricity connection to every household
Under Deen dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana not a single village which comes under census is left for connectivity. To provide electricity to every household be it in rural areas or urban areas in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a new scheme ‘Saubhagya- Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana’. The new scheme launched in September 25, 2017 also aims to electrification of all remaining hamlets, tolas, Dhanis , Majras which are not the Census village.
Saubhagya has set the target to provide electricity connections to more than 4 crore families across the country by 2018 end. On October 11,2017 total remaining households were 3,6215531 to be electrified. By 5th of May, 2018 total 52,80533 households were electrified. It means till now electrification of 14.58% of targeted households has been achieved.