The Hindu Business Line : Provide power in rural areas to qualify for funds, States told

New Delhi, March 5 In a bid to ensure rural electrification efforts pick up pace, the Government, besides ramping up the allocation of its flagship programme, is planning to make the release of capital subsidy under the scheme conditional to States guaranteeing a minimum daily electricity supply of 6-8 hours in the areas where the funds are to be utilised.

For the Eleventh Plan, the allocation for the Government’s flagship Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) had been enhanced to Rs 28,000 crore, with the Scheme having been extended to cover habitations with population of 100 and above.

Of the allocation for the current Plan, an amount of Rs 5,500 crore has been allocated in Budget 2008-09 for the next fiscal.

This is against Rs 3,983 crore allocated in 2007-08 and Rs 3,000 crore during 2006-07.

“While the allocation has been increased in a big way, it is also being stipulated that prior to release of any subsidy under RGGVY, the State Government has to guarantee a minimum daily supply of 6-8 hours of electricity in the RGGVY network,” a Government official involved in the exercise said.

Deadline pushed

The Centre had earlier set a target of providing electricity to all 1.25 lakh rural households by the end of next calendar year.

This deadline is expected to be pushed forward to the end of calendar year 2009, according to fresh estimates, even as the Centre has blamed States for tardy progress on the scheme and the expected delay in achieving the target.

Rural connections

According to estimates, electricity connections have been provided to over 60,000 rural households so far.

“While entire rural households were to be covered by end of March 2009, but due to slow progress of the scheme at the State level, we now expect the scheme to be completed only by the end on 2009,” a senior official in the ministry said.

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