Most major states need to significantly ramp up their speed of connecting households with power if they want to meet the government’s 100% household electrification target within the deadline of December 2018 under the Saubhagya scheme. Uttar Pradesh, where less than 74% of the households are connected, are electrifying 12,613 houses per day against the daily requirement of 1.17 lakh. Other major laggard states where more than 10% households are still in the dark are Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand. Karnataka, Telangana and West Bengal are also progressing at a slow speed, but 96.4%, 96.6% and 98.9% of the houses, respectively, are connected in these places. RK Singh said last week that his ministry has raised the equipment supply issue with the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association as demand for meters, transformers and electrical poles have gone up by about 14% annually.
Saubhagya scheme: Key states making slow progress on meeting targets
