Minister says UP will achieve 100% electrification by December end
On Sunday, Uttar Pradesh power minister Srikant Sharma told the press that the state would be achieving 100% electrification by the end of December. Confident that the target would be achieved before the beginning of the next year, Sharma added that electrification of households would be the government's "new year gift" to poor people in the state. Here are the details.
Notably, UP is among the states where the Saubhagya Scheme is slated to cover a large number of households. Saubhagya Scheme, also known as the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, was launched in 2017 with the objective of providing electricity to households across the country which still did not have access to electricity.
As it stands, UP has managed to electrify a significant portion of the state, and has only a small distance to go. According to the Saubhagya portal, around 11% of households in UP, or 34.46 lakh households across the state's 24 districts still lack electricity. Sharma said that these households would get power connections by December 31.
In the areas where the UP government supplies electricity, Sharma said that round-the-clock power is provided to district headquarters, 20 hours of power is provided to tehsil headquarters, while 18 hours of power is provided to villages at present on a daily basis.
The state power minister further said that the power department would celebrate a symbolic 'Diwali' on Republic Day next year to mark the 100% electrification of Uttar Pradesh. He added that when around one lakh villages did not have electricity when the BJP government came into power in the state. At present, that number has reduced to 33,000 villages.
