Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream project of electrifying all villages in the country is going to miss its deadline of May 2017 as most states have failed to put up efforts towards last mile connectivity.
Union Power Ministry's recent assessment reveals 5,150 villages in the country are still under dark. Two years ago, India had 12,480 villages to be electrified. This implies only 60 per cent of the target has been achieved so far.
Four states — Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh — account for half of the dark villages. Other states which have huge backlog include Jammu and Kashmir (102), Meghalaya (230) and Manipur (85).
The ministry has pulled up the states in a letter written in March first week. States have been directed to expedite their efforts to finish the work by end of May.
Soon after coming to power, Prime Minister Modi has announced that all dark villages in the country will be electrified by May 2018. At that time, nearly 18,500 villages were unelectrified.
The Ministry of Power took stock of the situation in April 2015 when 12,500 villages were still under dark. To force the states to act, Minister Piyush Goyal advanced the deadline to December 2016 which was then extended to May 2017.
Two states — Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — have shown outstanding performance, as per the figures of Power Ministry.
Rajasthan, which had 496 dark villages two years back, now has just one village to be electrified. UP had electrified 1,517 in the last two years and now needs to reach out to 12 villages only.
When asked about the slow progress, Dr Dinesh Arora, Executive Director, Rural Electrification Programme, Ministry of Power, claimed, "May 2017 is our internal deadline. The original deadline set up by the PM is May 2018."
When further insisted why some states are far behind while UP and Rajasthan managed to pull a good show, Dr Arora said, "UP had electrified only 23 villages between 2010-2015. It was due to keen interest of Minister
Piyush Goyal that UP performed so well in rural electrification in the last two years."
"The villages which are still dark are those affected with left-wing extremism. This includes nearly 3,000 villages across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar," said Arora adding that tough terrain is also responsible for the delay in electrification in some states.
"For instance, many villages fall in riverine area of Bihar. Due to floods, contractors were hesitant to take up the work. Same is for Meghalaya. However, tenders for most villages have been released now. All villages in the country would be electrified by December this year," said Arora.
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