Page 49 - Banking Finance October 017

FEATURES

BRINGING 24 x 7

POWER TO ALL BY

2022

I ndia has four crore unelectrified rural households. This were displeased with the poor power supply and cited

is more than the total number of households in
reliability, quality, duration, and affordability as key
Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, and more than
concerns.
double the households in Canada and South Korea. The
year 2022, the 75th anniversary of Indian independence, has Possible priorities
been earmarked for achieving ‘24x7 Power for All’. Achieving
A concrete action plan should include certain priorities.
this target would mean electrifying more than 7 lakh
Firstly, legalise existing connections. In the case of
households every month!
unelectrified households, providing connections is the basic
step for the discom and the State. In Madhya Pradesh,
While the task is daunting, the Government has made steady
Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha, the higher
progress in recent years. Data from the power ministry’s
electrification rate could partly be due to the presence of
GARV-2 portal suggest that the Government has electrified
more than three-fourths of the remaining 18,000 plus illegal connections, and legalising these would help the
Government move closer to its target.
unelectrified villages since it came to power in 2014.
Recently, the Government has also shifted focus from village
Secondly, improve uptake of connections by addressing
electrification, which required only 10 per cent of the
cashflow hurdles, awareness barriers, and supply challenges.
households in a village to be electrified, to electrifying every
High upfront cost is the major reason behind consumer
household.
disinterest in taking up an electricity connection. While BPL
households already receive a free connection under the Deen
However, providing an electricity connection to every
Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), APL families
household does not guarantee electricity access. In 2015,
could be given a low cost EMI based connection.
the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), in
association with Columbia University, conducted ACCESS, the
Empowering and encouraging local authorities to organise
largest of its kind energy access survey covering almost
awareness campaigns and enrolment camps in habitations
8,600 rural households in the six most energy deprived
States of India. exhibiting limited awareness are also essential for increasing
uptake of connections. Bihar is a fine example of improving
Survey findings from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West consumer uptake, providing low cost EMI based connections
Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha highlighted that while to APL families, and conducting awareness campaigns.
most of the villages and more than two-thirds of the Improving duration of supply and ensuring prompt
households had electricity connections, less than 40 per cent troubleshooting of technical problems are equally
had meaningful access to electricity. Many rural consumers important.

48 | 2017 | OCTOBER | BANKING FINANCE

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