Mallapur

The government has declared 2019 as the target date for every Indian household to get electricity. But a Factchecker analysis reveals that at current rates of electrification, it will take more than four years to provide power to all rural households alone.

Representational image. AFP

To meet its 2019 target, the government will need to electrify more than 2.7 million households every month or over four times the current rate of 633,630 per month.

More than 78 percent rural households in the country are electrified, power minister RK Singh told the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) on 6 February, 2018.

About 80 percent of rural households have been electrified as on 12 February, 2018, according to the real-time dashboard of Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Prime Minister’s Easy Electricity for Every Household Scheme), or the Saubhagya scheme, launched on 25 September, 2017 to electrify all rural and urban households.

At the current rate of electrification, it will take four years and seven months for the government to electrify the remaining 20 percent rural households (35 million households), our analysis reveals, against the government's target of 31 March, 2019.

Over 2.6 million households were electrified over four months to 12 February, 2018, since Saubhagya’s launch. As many as 16,341 or 89 percent of 18,452 unelectrified villages have been electrified, according to official data. However, only eight percent of these villages have all the households electrified over four years to 2018.