Anand Mahindra praises 100% 'village electrification' achievement from 35,000 feet

India has electrified all its villages 12 days ahead of a deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government said on Sunday, which could give the ruling party a boost ahead of a general election in 2019.

Reacting to the news, businessman Anand Mahindra praised the government saying this was a moment to acknowledge and appreciate ‘those behind the achievement’.

He wrote on Twitter: “Tweeting from 35k ft via airline wifi. Wifi seems a basic right now! Reflecting on how we urbanites took basic facilities for granted these past decades while so many villages had no access to power & light. This is a moment to acknowledge & appreciate those behind this achievement.”

Tweeting from 35k ft via airline wifi.Wifi seems a basic right now!Reflecting on how we urbanites took basic facilities for granted these past decades while so many villages had no access to power&light.This is a moment to acknowledge&appreciate those behind this achievement https://t.co/awYpw0N8pp

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) April 29, 2018

Leisang village in Manipur, like the thousands of other villages across India has been powered and empowered!

This news will make every Indian proud and delighted. https://t.co/UCPEEITbIM #PowerfulIndia

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 29, 2018

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

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.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 29, 2018

Asia's third-largest economy has been held back for years by a power shortage, with industries having to cope with blackouts and hospitals forced to rely on diesel-run generators for backup.

But Modi said on Sunday that April 28, on the evening of which a remote village in the northeast became the last to be connected to the grid, would 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!" Modi wrote on Twitter, as various ministers in his government took to social media to congratulate him.

Government data showed that all of India's 597,464 census villages have now been electrified. When Modi took office in 2014, there were some 18,452 villages without electricity.

But just because all villages are connected to the grid does not mean all Indians have access to power.

The government considers a village electrified if it has basic electrical infrastructure and 10 percent of its households and public places including schools, local administrative offices and health centres have power.

Some people, however, said on Twitter their villages had yet to be electrified despite the government's claim.

"No. Not every village yet," said Twitter user Dilip Gupta, identifying his village in a district of Uttar Pradesh in the north. "Over the course of years my native place has been expecting electricity every year, but it hasn't arrived yet."

The World Bank said in a report last year that globally 1.06 billion people had no electricity, with India and Nigeria topping the list of most power-deficient countries.

With inputs from Reuters