Villagers in Assam find hole in PM's 100 per cent electrification claim

Guwahati: Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have announced that all the villages in India now have access to electricity but more than 20 villages in Assam are yet to see the electricity.

Three days after Prime Minister’s announcement, the headman Malangapa village in Dima Hasao district of Assam Mr Esove Pame came before the media and said, “Our village is one of the oldest in Dima Hasao but it has not received electricity yet. We are totally dependent on kerosene lamps and lanterns. We have been requesting the authorities for electrification for years but nothing has been done.”

He went on saying, “I request the Prime Minister to visit our village to know the ground reality.”

As the news was flashed about the complete electrification of villages, more and more villagers are coming forward and approaching the local media houses highlighting their plight.

A social worker from Dima Hasao Mr Aching Zeme on Tuesday claimed that there are more than 20 villages without electricity in his area alone.

He also provided the names of 20 villages, which are yet to be connected to the electricity supply in the district.

Though, it could not be verified independently, the residents of at least three villages in Upper Assam district also claimed that their villages are yet to get the power supply.

However, sources in the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) on Tuesday said that 170 villages of Dima Hasao were selected under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, a central scheme to facilitate 24x7 supply of power to all the villages of the country.

Pointing out that the norms of the rural electrification corporation limited, under the ministry of power, says that at least 10 per cent households need to be connected for a village to be declared electrified, sources in the APDCL said that of the 170 villages, 140 have got electricity while electrification work is on in 30 villages.

In what contradicted the Prime Minister’s announcement, the APDCL also claimed to have met its target of 100 per cent electrification of revenue villages of Assam in December 2017 but they could not connect around 160 villages as they were “either eroded, uninhabited or in forest areas.

As on March 31, 2015, there were 2,892 revenue villages in Assam that were not electrified and by December 17, 2017, the APDCL had managed to connect 2,732 such villages with electricity, including solar power.

The remaining 160 villages either fell in Permanent Grazing Reserve, Variable Grazing Reserve, forest areas or were eroded.

It is significant that power ministry claimed to have achieved the target of 100 per cent electrification on Saturday when a remote village in the North-eastern state of Manipur became the last to be connected to the grid.

The Prime Minister also claimed that all of nearly 600,000 villages in India have now been given electricity connection.