Electrification opens up a world of opportunities – it empowers citizens and transforms their quality of life. Extended working hours for small and emerging businesses; improving health status; learning opportunities for children across geographic areas; And among other unprecedented possibilities, electrification brings with it new hope for a brighter and more sustainable future – and advanced safety solutions for communities in both urban and rural areas.
While meeting the arduous task of rural electrification, the Government of India, while simultaneously aspiring to electrify all households in the country, focused its attention on universal household electrification. Hon’ble Prime Minister launched Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana – ‘Saubhagya’ scheme, under which all stakeholders are called upon to use their energy towards electrification of every household in the country within a challenging time frame of 18 months. The total outlay of this scheme was Rs 16,320 crore. Saubhagya is the story of a nation’s journey. A journey that changed the lives of millions of Indians. A challenge of epic proportions achieved by one nation in just a few months to bring the world’s largest household electrification campaign to life.
travel at a glance
Such a great achievement could not have been possible without the support and tireless efforts of a team that worked seamlessly as a cohesive unit. Right from the beginning, we were faced with the challenge of identifying the un-electrified households in the country. We had to be practical in our approach – we used the more than 150 year old backbone of our country’s communication network; Postal Department. A survey was conducted through them to ascertain the number of un-electrified households. ‘Sankhya’, a web portal and mobile app, was specially developed for this survey for real time analysis and preparation of a prudent strategy.
The implementation of Saubhagya itself was a remarkable success story of cooperative federalism where both the State and Central Governments worked in seamless coordination for timely achievement of goals. 56 DISCOMs worked tirelessly across the country to ensure electricity connection to every interested household. Saubhagya camps were organized at village level to reach out to the beneficiaries and to facilitate on-the-spot electricity connection – to ensure that no house is left behind. A special fleet of ‘Saubhagya Rath’ was flagged off in different states of the country to create awareness among people and to identify every household without electricity, which initially failed to register under the scheme Will be A 24×7 working control room was set up to assist the beneficiaries on all the queries related to the scheme, to address their grievances and provide electricity connections with the support of DISCOMs for quick resolution. Stand-alone solar PV-based systems were installed in places where the solutions were not techno-economically viable due to scattered homes. Our efforts have translated into connecting millions of people to the mainstream of our country’s development pipeline and activating millions of smiles even more.
As I turn the pages of history, 1879 was the year that light bulbs were used to power the streets of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and on 31 March 2019, India achieved universal electrification – making us a Became more equipped to leap into the new stage. of exponential growth.
quality power path
After electrification of 2.82 crore willing households, we are now working towards providing reliable quality 24 x 7 electricity supply in both urban and rural India. Uninterrupted supply of electricity to every Indian household would mean better access to all needs. It will bring a big change especially in rural areas as more and more citizens will be able to use new and better farming techniques, agri-machinery, latest technologies etc. . The credible power will also bring with it ample opportunities for setting up of new businesses and facilitating socio-economic growth and development in various small scale industries. As India steps into a new era of progress, not a single citizen will be left behind as we achieve our goal of ‘Electricity for All’.
R Lakshmanan is a 2004 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Bihar cadre. He has done B.Com from Annamalai University. He is also a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He is currently holding the position of Executive Director in REC Limited since February 2019
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