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When the UPA government came to power one of the major issues featuring in the National Common Minimum programme (NCMP) was rural electrification.
Imbibed with the philosophy of Late Rajiv Gandhi and with a deep sense of belief in the fact that real India lived in the villages the present government has got about the task of reaching electricity to 7.8 crore rural household in the next five years.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said his government was committed to providing access to electricity to every village in the country by 2009.
The enormity of the task can be measured from the fact that of the 5.8 lakh villages some 1.5 lakh remain to be electrified and from the household point of view it stands somewhere around 7.8 crore.
While eight states—Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Haryana, Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Nagaland— have achieved near complete electrification, the worst performers are Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where 78 per cent, 53 per cent and 42 per cent respectively of the villages are yet to receive power.
It was under these circumstances that Dr Manmohan Singh launched the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana. Under the Yojana the government aimed at creating the Rural Electrification Distribution Backbone (REDB) with at least 33/11 KV sub-station in every block. It proposed that emanating from REDB would be at least one transformer in each village and household electrification via distribution through transformers. But wherever this failed, the government would resort to decentralized distribution facilities using both conventional and non-conventional energy.
The significant aspect is that the Yojana plans to provide free electricity to people living Below Poverty Line (BPL), but there would be a stress on collection of cost for electricity from the beneficiaries capable to make the payments. To achieve this objective, it is proposed that franchise like the NGOs, consumer associations etc. will be deployed with appropriate involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions.
There is also a shift from the policies followed by the previous governments. There will be no discrimination in the hours of power supply between the rural and urban areas. The shift will also be in the quality of electricity supplied. Previously, focus of electrification was primarily for irrigation, but now it is for the households and in a unified manner.
For this purpose the Centre has already approved Rs 5,000 crore for providing capital subsidy for the scheme in the remaining period of the 10th Plan. The estimated cost of the scheme is Rs 16,000 crore, which is spread till the 11th Plan Period.
The UPA government has also decided to introduce a new scheme namely “Scheme of Rural Electricity Infrastructure and Household Electrification”. Rural Electricity Infrastructure and Household Electrification programme replaced the existing scheme of accelerated electrification of one lakh villages and one crore households by merging the Minimum Need Programme (MNP) into it.
The National Electricity Policy among other things aims at reaching electricity to all households in the next five years and meet complete power availability by 2012. It also aims at supplying reliable and quality power of specified standard in an efficient manner and at a reasonable rate, while making available per capita electricity increased to over 100 units by 2012. (PIB Features)
**Senior Journalist, UNI, Kolkata
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