A total of 314 villages were electrified across the country in the week ending March 6 as part of the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna, an official statement said on Monday.
From April 2015, a total of 6,156 villages have been electrified out of a target of 18,452 villages by May 2018.
Of the remaining 12,296 villages, 8,496 are to be electrified through grid solutions, 3,312 will be electrified through off-grid solutions and 488 by the state government.
Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, said last week that under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna, a village is considered electrified only after all the buildings in the village are connected to electricity lines.
“The lines can support at least 500W of usage so there can be a number of LED lights that one can use. We plan to come out with energy efficient fans next which consume only about 25-30W of electricity. This will be a further boost to these villages which were deprived of electricity till now,” Goyal added.
In the last week, the maximum number of villages were electrified in Uttar Pradesh (93) followed by Odisha (41), Assam (40), Chhattisgarh (40), Arunachal Pradesh (31), Jharkhand (30), Bihar (19), Madhya Pradesh (16) and Rajasthan (4).