Narendra Modi claims all Indian villages have electricity access: 10 facts that put accomplishment in perspective

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed to have fulfilled one of the largest poll promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party before the 2014 general election: To deliver electricity access to every Indian village. 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.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 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,” Modi  said on Sunday. [caption id=“attachment_4447291” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi in London. Image courtesy: Twitter/@PIB_India[/caption] A village is recognised as electrified if it has basic electrical infrastructure and 10 percent of its households and public places — including schools, panchayat office and health centre — have access to electricity, an  NDTV report said. In his speech from the Red Fort on Independence Day in 2015, the prime minister promised that all villages where electricity was yet to reach will have power within a thousand days, the report pointed out. Considering the length and breadth of the country, this is a stupendous achievement. Indeed, it is a historic day. However, here are 10 facts which put this accomplishment in perspective: 1. India has 649,867 villages. 2. When NDA took over, 18,452 villages were unconnected to any grid. 3. Later, during project work, 1,275 villages declared electrified by UPA were found to be not electrified. 4. NDA under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) scheme had a Rs 75,893 crore corpus to electrify 19,727 villages. That’s about 4,930 villages per year. 5. The DDUGJY was to electrify the last villages: 3 percent. The previous governments headed by the Gandhis, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, PV Narsimha Rao and Morarji Desai achieved 97 percent of the job. That should answer the question: What have the previous governments done for the past 60 to 70 years? 6. Putting things in perspective, the UPA under Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) electrified 108,280 villages between 2005 and 2014. That’s 12,030 villages per year. 7. A village is considered electrified if just 10 percent of its households and public places have electricity. 8. To put things in perspective, though all 19,727 villages are electrified, only 8 percent have full electricity connections. That means, 92 percent of the electrified houses have no power. 9. Twenty-five percent (45 million) of rural households have no electricity. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, less than 50 percent have electricity. 10. For the record, the last village to be electrified is Leisang village in Manipur. Now, over to Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana or Saubhagya to get power connections into the electrified villages. Looking at the electoral benefits this can have, we can safely assume a renewed vigour in implementing this scheme.