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3 Apr, 2016

On paper, electrified villages — in reality, darkness – The Hindu

The Centre claims to be fulfilling the Prime Minister’s plan for full rural electrification. But a close check of its own real-time data shows that the gap between official claims and ground reality is stark.

Haldu Khata, a village in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh, is one of the 7,008 villages that the government claims to have “electrified” in the last year, under the Modi government’s flagship scheme of rural electrification, Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana. However, according to the government’s own field engineers, there is no electrical infrastructure in the village. Similarly, Dimatala in Assam, Kadam Jheriya in Chhattisgarh, Buknari in Bihar and Sunwara in Madhya Pradesh are misclassified as electrified villages in government books. These are not exceptional cases. The Hindu’s analysis of rural electrification data shows that the number of villages said to be electrified in the last year is exaggerated.

Read the rest: On paper, electrified villages — in reality, darkness – The Hindu