Will every household have power by 2019? Saubhagya Yojna may just fail target; here is why

By Prakash Priyadrshi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to provide electricity to every household by March 2019 through his ambitious plan named Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana - Saubhagya Yojna. The Yojna launched on September 25, 2017, seeks to complete the electrification process of nearly 4 crore unelectrified houses by December 2018. However, Centre is troubled by the slow pace of state governments on the issue that may make it miss the deadline. Troubled with the speed of electrification of the households, the power ministry has written a letter to the states asking it to accelerate the work. It has also asked the states to provide data on household electrification without any delay.

The data and the speed of implementation definitely raises a question that will the government be able to increase the average to 1 lakh 27 thousand houses per day for remaining 250 days, available on the calendar? As per the existing speed of implementation, it will take more than 4 years to achieve this target.

The scheme proposes to penalise the discoms for their inability to supply the electricity for 24 hours after March 2019. It asks the Power Utilities to devise a strategy to reduce their losses, the consumer must not be burdened with high power tariffs irrationally. But the available data says a different story about the scheme, 24x7 Power for All. It suggests that the government may not meet the target due to several hurdles like the speed of implementation and the financial health of the discoms.

It has been six months of implementation of the scheme, but the average speed of house electrification has reached a mark of 23,000 households per day. Saubhagya data suggests that only 39 lakh 84 thousand houses have been electrified till date.

Available data suggest that the 45 percent houses of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state of India, has not been electrified, while electricity has not reached 27 percent houses of Bihar. With 11.5 lakh houses being electrified, Madhya Pradesh is the state that has seen the maximum electrification work under the Yojna; whereas the target is 29 lakhs.