Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
To ensure round the clock availability of power supply, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to provide 24×7 electricity in both rural and the urban areas of the state from the ongoing month of December.
“In rural areas, we are providing power supply from sixteen to eighteen hours (in a day). We are trying to ensure that power is supplied for twenty four hours from this month, be it village or city in the state,” announced Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He said this during the Prime Minister’s Master Plan North Conference yesterday on December 3 in Lucknow.
Meanwhile, the state claims that it is presently supplying power for 18 hours to rural areas and 20 hours in tehsil towns of the state.
Interestingly, on November 14, Union minister Piyush Goyal had claimed that uninterrupted power supply is already provided in the state. “Aaj poore pradesh mein, chaubis ghante bijli, apne aap mein, udyog aur vyapar ke liye bahut bada saadhan hai (In the entire state today, a 24-hour power supply, is itself an amenity for industry and trade],” tweeted the commerce and industry minister.
“In cities of Uttar Pradesh, we are supplying electricity for twenty four hours. As of now, we are giving eighteen hours of power supply in villages. In villages of Bundelkhand region, we are giving power supply for twenty two hours,” Ankush Tripathi, public relations officer to the Minister of Energy and Additional Energy Resources Uttar Pradesh Shrikant Sharma told Gaon Connection.
The announcement has been welcomed by the beneficiaries in villages.
“We are happy that the government has made such an announcement. We were very troubled with power cuts under previous governments. Earlier, we would face power cuts for three to four hours,” 52 year old Shivdevi, a resident of Rahmatnagar village in Gosaiganj of Lucknow district told Gaon Connection.
“Now we face power cuts only for some ten to fifteen minutes in a day. We are already getting almost twenty four hours of power supply in our village. Anyway in winters, we do not have much use of bijli (power) as we only use bulbs and water heaters sometimes. We do not use the fridge and fans in winters,” she added.
‘11% rural households unelectrified’
According to the recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, 88.9 per cent of Uttar Pradesh’s population living in rural households had electricity in 2020-21. This increased from 62.3 per cent of rural households which had electricity in 2015-16, shows NFHS-4 data. It is to be noted that 11 per cent of rural households in the state are unelectrified.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the NFHS data, the Union Ministry of Power in its latest report mentioned that over 11.2 million households in Uttar Pradesh were yet to be electrified at the end of financial year 2017. As per its report titled ‘24*7 Power for All Uttar Pradesh’, there are 28.9 million rural households in the state. And of these, around 11.2 million — nearly 40 per cent — are unelectrified rural households in the state.
More than 75 per cent of households in the state are in rural areas.
Also Read: Energising rural India with reliable electricity supply
Contrary to this, the government data (till March, 2019) shows that 100 per cent of households in Uttar Pradesh are electrified. An initiative of the Indian government under SAUBHAGYA- Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, is focused on achieving electrification of all un-electrified households in the country.
“Till December 2019, whoever demanded or was interested in availing electricity in their households or hamlets were provided with it,” said Tripathi.
The Union Power Ministry report highlights that apart from a large number of unelectrified households, another major issue in the state is the large number of unmetered connections. There were almost 6.8 million unmetered domestic consumers in the state in the financial year 2017. This accounted for 40 per cent of the total 17 million domestic consumers.
“To achieve the target of providing 24×7 power to all by 2019 and effectively monitor the same, it is important to achieve 100 per cent metering as well,” suggested the Union Ministry of Power.
Also Read: Powered by women, paying electricity bills to get easier in the villages of Uttar Pradesh
