One-third of the total number of households electrified under the nationwide household electrification scheme “Saubhagya” have been in Uttar Pradesh, according to information tabled in the Lok Sabha during the ongoing winter session.
It was informed in Parliament that Saubhagya has achieved its objective of nationwide electrification of all rural and urban households. The total number of households electrified under the scheme stands at 2.82 crore, as of March 31, 2021. (See table).
Uttar Pradesh has benefited from the electrification of nearly 92 lakh households, accounting for 32.9 per cent of the total national achievement. This high share of electrification in this northern state only reflects the massive state of non-electrification before Saubhagya was launched.
Bihar was the next biggest beneficiary with around 33 lakh households electrified, accounting for 11.6 per cent of the nation’s total. Following this eastern state were Odisha, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – in that order.
Assam was also significantly under-electrified before Saubhagya was launched. Thanks to the scheme, this northeastern state saw 19.5 lakh households receiving an electricity connection. The top ten states accounted for 91.1 per cent of the total electrification under Saubhagya. Further, just the top five states, had a share of over two-thirds.
The case with Gujarat is very interesting. This western state saw electrification of just 41,317 households, accounting for a trifling 0.1 per cent of the national achievement. This apparently low achievement is because Gujarat had achieved almost full electrification under the village and even household level, much before Saubhagya was launched.
FY19: The busiest year
Launched in October 2017, Saubhagya extended for four financial years—FY18 to FY21. The peak activity of this Centrally-sponsored programme was seen in FY19. In this year, a record number of 2.2 crore households were electrified. To put this in perspective, it translates to electrification of nearly 61,000 households per calendar day. Uttar Pradesh, the largest overall beneficiary of Saubhagya, witnessed average electrification of nearly 19,000 households per day, in FY19.
Saubhagya Background
The Centre launched the “Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana” (Saubhagya) in October, 2017 with the objective to achieve universal household electrification. The scheme aimed to provide electricity connections to all willing un-electrified households in rural areas and all willing poor households in urban areas in the country by March, 2019.
As on March 31, 2019, all households were reported electrified by states, except 18,734 households in Left Wing Extremists (LWE) affected areas of Chhattisgarh. Subsequently, seven states — Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Manipur, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — reported that they collectively had 19.09 lakh un-electrified households. These households were identified before March 31, 2019 but were unwilling to get electricity connections then. However, they conveyed their consent in due course. All these seven states reported 100 per cent household electrification, as of March 31, 2021.
Featured photograph, sourced from ge.com is for representation only
