The Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana — Saubhagya — is just the icing on the cake in India’s overall household electrification drive, claims the Ministry of Power.
According to data compiled by the Ministry, there are 21.3 crore total households in the country. Of these, the Centre’s household electrification drive, Saubhagya, has connected 2.46 crore homes, and another 1.43 lakh homes are to be connected by March-end.
The rest of the houses had already been electrified when the scheme was launched in September 2017. So effectively, there is an approximately 11-per cent increase in the total number of electrified households in the country under the scheme.
Few homes electrified
At the time of launch of the scheme, State governments had reported that about four crore households were un-electrified as on September 10, 2017. This estimate was based on census figures, according to an official statement.
But the total number of homes electrified under Saubhagya is much lower.
“This is because when the electrification teams of the States went to villages, they found the number of houses left for electrification in most villages was less than that estimated by them,” said a clarification from the Ministry of Power.
“This was mostly on two counts — many census households were living together and availing electricity services together with single connection; and, many households have already availed connections in the process of village electrification and intensive electrification under the ongoing Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and the States’ scheme,” the statement added.
Providing all these homes electricity connections will add around 28,000 MW of additional peak demand (maximum power requirement at any point during the day). This will be in addition to the 1,77,022 MW existing peak demand, assessed by the Central Electricity Authority till October 2018. The newer demand coming online will be met with 3,46,048 MW of existing installed power generation capacity.