BJD questions Centre’s electrification claims

New Delhi: The BJD Thursday questioned the claims of the Centre on electrification in the country and asked it if there is any concrete plan for rectifying the shortcomings in electrification.
Raising the issue during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, BJD MP from Bolangir Kalikesh Singh Deo said, “Electrification of a village means 10 per cent of the households should be electrified. When you say that the entire nation has been electrified it means electrifying 10 per cent of the nation. This does not meet the
criteria.”
Citing World Bank report on electrification of the country, Kalikesh said, “The World Bank still says that almost 20 crore people still live without electricity and almost another 30-40 crore live with access to substandard electricity. There is a lot to be done. Does the government have any plan which will address these deficiencies?”
Replying to the MP’s question, Minister of State for Power, New and Renewable Energy RK Singh said, “It is true that if 10 per cent households and government buildings get electrified then the village is considered electrified. We have allotted funds for electrification of villages as per the request of states and they have informed us that all villages are electrified.”
The minister added, “We have set a target to electrify all households. We started the Saubhagya scheme last October and electrified 92 lakh households. State governments have sent us reports that 3.80 crore households are not electrified yet. We have set a target to electrify all houses by March 31, 2019.”
Singh said that they will try to electrify all households by December.