One of the announcements in the recent Budget speech of Union finance minister Arun Jaitley was that the government would achieve 100 per cent village electrification by May 1, 2018. Several industry captains have reacted positively to this announcement. Yes, village electrification is a highly noble objective but the term “100 per cent village electrification” must be understood clearly.
Firstly, even though it may so appear, “100 per cent village electrification” certainly does not mean that all households in all villages will have an electricity connection. A village is deemed to be “electrified” when at least 10 per cent of the households of that village have an electricity connection. There are other eligibility criteria such as government buildings like schools and primary health centres also have an electricity connection.
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Non-electrified Villages in India
In his Independence Day speech of 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had observed that India then had 18,000-odd non-electrified villages. Thus, these 18,000 villages were non-electrified by definition. This means that either there was not even a single electricity connection (which was most likely the case) or if there were any, the number of connections would be less than 10 per cent of the total number of households. Prime Minister Modi had pledged to electrify these 18,000-odd villages in 1,000 days, following August 15,2015. The deadline of May 1, 2018 emerged thus. Though the Budget speech announcement, the government is merely stating that it is on course to meet this deadline. If it does, we will have every village “electrified” by definition, by May 1, 2018.
It must also be appreciated that village electrification stops once the definition is achieved. Intensification of village electrification, which is increasing the number of electrified households progressively, is a continuous process. And yes, there are villages that are 100 per cent electrified, in the normal sense of the term.
The larger agenda of the government is “Power for All” which means that every citizen has access to electricity. This will imply, among other things, 100 per cent village electrification, in its true sense.