Govt beats rural electrification targets, wants to light up all villages a year earlier

Work is on to meet the Indian government’s target of electrifying every village in the country a year before the 2018 deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in Mathura. The minister asserted that there is no dearth of power and coal in the country. “No power plant in the country has to temporarily shut down for dearth of coal which shows that there is no shortage. We can now supply any amount of power to any state on demand,” he said. The minister was addressing a meeting of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) last evening.

Referring to the Narenda Modi government’s pledge to electrify all villages by 2018. he said, “We have decided to fulfill it at least a year ahead of the deadline.” Goyal said, “So far 38 per cent of the work has been done as 6,114 villages have been electrified.” Batting for increased use of LED, he said, “It is being made available to common man at Rs 74 against its earlier market price of Rs 450 since transparency has been maintained in bidding etc. “Our target is to ensure LED in every house of the country by 2019 by pressing sale of 77 crore bulbs. It would also save 2.5 crore units of power,” he asserted.

The minister spoke on welfare schemes initiated by Modi government and asked activists of BJYM to make the rural people aware about them. Electrification has been done in 6,000 of the 18,500 unelectrified villages and the renewable energy capacity has reached 39.5 Giga Watts, reports PTI.

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