Govt to electrify every household by December 31, says power minister

New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Power RK Singh on Sunday said the government will electrify each household of country by December 31.

Talking to news agency ANI, Singh said that the new target has been set after fulfilling the 100 per cent village electrification target before the deadline.

"We achieved 100 percent rural electrification 13 days ahead of the deadline. This is a huge success. Now, our next aim is to electrify each household in the country, which will be done by December 31, 2018," Singh said.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "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."

The Centre claimed that as many as 18,452 villages were without electricity when the BJP-led government came to power in May 2014. Today, all of the country's 597,464 census villages have been electrified.

However, the government's definition of rural electrification is being debated.

According to Power Ministry, definition of village electrification is a legacy issue which, though, mandates electrification of at least 10 per cent households in a village, but does not imply restricting household electrification only to 10 per cent.

"As per recent reports from the States, household electrification level in rural areas is more than 82 per cent ranging from 47to 100 per cent across various States. Had the definition been cause, such level of household electrification could not have been achieved," said the ministry.

It added that the variation in level of electrification across various regions and states within the country is primarily because of its size, heterogeneity in terms of topography; location; resources and also because of varying efforts made by the States for household electrification.

The ministry further said the government has already moved out of this dichotomy and launched 'Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana'- Saubhagya to achieve universal household electrification in the country by December 31, 2018.