Centre powers 7,000 villages, achieves rural electrification target

New Delhi: The Power Ministry on Monday said it has achieved the target of electrifying 7,000 villages in the current fiscal. “During 2015-16, 7,012 villages have been electrified till date. Out of remaining 11,440 villages, 7,843 villages are to be electrified through grid, 3,148 villages are to be electrified through off-grid where grid solutions are out of reach due to geographical barriers and 449 villages are to be electrified by state government own,” the Power Ministry said in a press release. [caption id=“attachment_2699496” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] It said that total 1,654 villages were electrified during April 2015 to August 2015 and 5,358 additional villages have been added in this list during August 15, 2015 to March 27, 2016. 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, sharing of list of villages which are at the stage of under energisation with the state discoms, identifying the villages where milestone progress are delayed. The Centre has a set a target to electrify 18,452 un-electrified villages within 1,000 days by May 1, 2018. The project has been taken on mission mode and strategy for electrification consists of squeezing the implementation schedule to 12 months and also dividing village electrification process in 12 stage milestones with defined timelines for monitoring, it added. The statement said that 196 villages have been electrified across the country during last week (March 21 to 27, 2016) under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY). Of these electrified villages, 75 are in Assam, 22 in Arunachal Pradesh , 22 in Bihar, 20 in Chhattisgarh, 16 in Odisha, 16 in Jharkhand, 11 villages in Uttar Pradesh, 9 in Madhya Pradesh, 4 in Manipur and 1 in Rajasthan, it added. PTI