Just before Karnataka Assembly Elections, there was a major hyperbole about the Electrification of all the villages in India. It was a carefully timed political gimmick. In our system, the masters are clearly politicians. One state power Minister tweeted “we have electrified all the villages.” But PM was more precise and careful and claimed: “ every single village in India now has access to electricity ". When I tried to gather information on this out of my own curiosity, I found, neither was correct.
Under the definition in place, since October 1997, if a village has a distribution transformer, and power lines in place, as well as electricity provided, to public places, like schools, panchayat offices, and dispensaries including Just 10% of its households, it is deemed to be electrified. But in states like Jharkhand, UP, and Assam, nearly 50% of the rural households have no power. So to consider such villages "electrified” could be far from the truth.
The fact that all of India’s nearly 600,000 villages are electrified, means, it’s no mean achievement, but celebrating over just a piece of statistics like the last inhabited village of India getting electrified is celebrating a bit too early. Afterall, don’t Indian citizens find it a bit weird that all inhabited villages in the country have been electrified, when a simpler and more basic need of potable drinking water in every village is still a far cry.?
In fact, it is even questionable whether they have “access to electricity, as such.” According to the Oxford dictionary, the appropriate meaning of the word Access is the”right or opportunity to use”. But do households which remain in the dark have either the right or opportunity? Only theoretically because whilst the necessary infrastructure is missing the truthful answer is: definitely not as yet and maybe not for a long time to come.
Under the definition in place, since October 1997, if a village has a distribution transformer, and power lines in place, as well as electricity provided, to public places, like schools, panchayat offices, and dispensaries including Just 10% of its households, it is deemed to be electrified. But in states like Jharkhand, UP, and Assam, nearly 50% of the rural households have no power. So to consider such villages "electrified” could be far from the truth.
The fact that all of India’s nearly 600,000 villages are electrified, means, it’s no mean achievement, but celebrating over just a piece of statistics like the last inhabited village of India getting electrified is celebrating a bit too early. Afterall, don’t Indian citizens find it a bit weird that all inhabited villages in the country have been electrified, when a simpler and more basic need of potable drinking water in every village is still a far cry.?
In fact, it is even questionable whether they have “access to electricity, as such.” According to the Oxford dictionary, the appropriate meaning of the word Access is the”right or opportunity to use”. But do households which remain in the dark have either the right or opportunity? Only theoretically because whilst the necessary infrastructure is missing the truthful answer is: definitely not as yet and maybe not for a long time to come.
