'Power for all' project in 'mission mode'; govt brings electricity to over 9,600 villages so far

Electrifying villages and providing power to all, is one of the main focus areas for the Modi government amongst many others. In the run up to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day address to the country, the government said that it has decided to electrify the remaining 18452 un-electrified villages within 1,000 days, by May 1, 2018. 

According to a notification from the government, so far it has provided electricity to 9,653 villages, with 8,799 villages to go to meet the target. 

Just last week -- August 1 to 7, 2016) electricity was provided to 327 villages under the Deen Dayal Upadhayaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY). 

"Out of these electrified villages, seven villages belong to Arunachal Pradesh, 12 to Assam, 10 to Bihar, four to Chattisgarh, 68 to Jharkhand, four to Madhya Pradesh, 11 to Manipur, 136 to Meghalaya, eight to Nagaland, 24 to Odisha, six to Rajasthan, two to Tripura, 31 to Uttar Pradesh and one each to Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka and Mizoram," the government said.

From April 2015 to August 15, 2015, 1,645 villages were electrified. After that the project was put into "mission mode" and in the one year since, 7,999 villages were given electricity, it said. 

In order to expedite the progress further, a close monitoring is being done through Gram Vidyut Abhiyanta (GVA) and various actions are also being taken on regular basis like reviewing the progress on monthly basis during the RPM meeting, sharing of list of villages which are at the stage of under energization with the state DISCOM, identifying the villages where milestone progress are delayed, the notification said.