India to achieve universal household electrification by January-end

[HariPrasad]

India to achieve universal household electrification by January-end
India is all set to achieve 100 per cent household electrification by this month end.
India is all set to achieve 100 per cent household electrification by the month end, with 2.44 crore families having received power connections out of the targeted 2.48 crore under the Rs 16,320 crore Saubhagya scheme, an official said. The Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya) was launched in September 2017.

"The 100 per cent household electrification under Saubhagya will be achieved by month end. The government has energised 2.44 crore households under the scheme till today," the official said.

"Around 30,000 families are being provided electricity connection everyday. Therefore, the remaining around four lakh households could be energised by the end of this month itself," the official added.

Achieving 100 per cent household electrification was one of the aims of the present government. However, it could not meet the self-imposed deadline of December 2018 for the scheme.

At a meeting of state power ministers, chaired by union Power Minister R K Singh in Shimla in July 2018, it was resolved to complete the task of energising all households by December 31, 2018, against the original deadline of March 31, 2019 provided under the Saubhagya scheme.

As per the official, the speed of work slowed down in some states due to elections and Maoist problems, while there were some contractual issues as well in a few states.

According to the Saubhagya portal, about 3.58 lakh households are left to be electrified in four states -- Assam (1,63,016), Rajasthan (88,219), Meghalaya (86,317) and Chhattisgarh (20,293).

The Saubhagya scheme envisages providing last mile connectivity and electricity connections to all remaining households in rural as well as urban areas.

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[Götterdämmerung]

https://www.powerforall.org/campaigns/india/universal-rural-electrification-india-not-so-fast

How can the government announce the completion of Saubhagya if so many remain without electricity? The most important reason is that the government changed the goals of the Saubhagya scheme and excluded any household that did not apply for an electricity connection.

 

[d00od00o]

Modi Bhakts are working overtime...



Modi Announces '100% Village Electrification', But 31 Million Indian Homes Are Still In The Dark
Suparna Dutt D'Cunha

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pledge to bring reliable power to all, at the time when the World Bank reported India has world’s largest un-electrified population, propelled him into office in 2014. In the year after his election, an audit identified 18,452 villages without electricity, and he promised that every village would be electrified within 1,000 days. April 28, when Leisang, a tiny hamlet in the remote northeastern state of Manipur, was connected to the grid, was 988 days since that promise. Modi tweeted that it would be “remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India.”

No doubt a massive accomplishment, but a closer look at what constitutes “electrified” reveals how much further India has to go. According to official data, only 1,417 of India’s 18,452 villages, or 7.3% of the total, have 100% household connectivity, and about 31 million homes are still in the dark. The government deemsa village “electrified” if power cables from the grid reach a transformer in each village and 10% of its households, as well as public places such as schools and health centers, are connected.

Kristina Skierka, of Power for All, a coalition of over 200 public and private organizations campaigning to deliver universal electricity access by 2025, claims that “total electrification” is far from reality and can only be achieved when all the hamlets and households are covered. “As, defined, ' village electrification’ still leaves 90% of the people living in India’s 18,452 targeted villages without electricity ,” she says.

Ambitious goal

Homes without electricity are spread across major provinces of the country, such as Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, each having nearly 6 million unconnected households. “Uttar Pradesh, the giant north Indian state, accounts for 14.6 million households without electricity access,” says Debajit Palit, associate director at The Energy And Resources Institute.

Last year, the government followed up with a $2.5 billion program, Saubhagya, to provide power connections to nearly every household by the end of March 2019. “The Saubhagya goal is very ambitious. To achieve the target by March 31, 2019, the connection rate should be 2.03 million households per month,” says Palit. “However, data from Saubhagya portal indicates that around 0.73 million connections have been released per month from the launch of the scheme in last October to end of April.”

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Electrification is a three-step process, Palit explains. The first is to extend the infrastructure to the village, the second is to connect the household and the third, the most challenging, is to ensure reliable and affordable supply on a sustained basis. “The government has achieved the first goal, and the second goal is progressing. We now have to look forward to how the most critical goal unfolds,” Palit adds.

Unreliable data and power supply

Efforts to provide electricity to every Indian have historically been hampered by poorly designed and implemented schemes that encouraged contractors to do the bare minimum to make sure a village qualified as electrified, resulting in inconsistencies in official data, and glaring disparities on the ground.

“What is required from the federal government is to push the state-run distribution companies to carry out robust ground surveys and organize frequent camps to achieve the target so that not one household is left out from electrification,“ says Palit. “Unless that is done, the reliability of supply and viability of the distribution business will be difficult to achieve.”

Electricity supply is controlled and maintained by India’s state governments, and, according to Vinay Rustagi of Bridge to India, a knowledge services provider in the Indian renewable space, these government-owned distribution companies “remain the weakest link” in the power sector value chain. “They are badly run and unable to invest in upkeep of the local distribution infrastructure.” Reliability of electricity supply is “likely to remain a dream” for most consumers in India for years to come, Rustagi adds.

A study conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water showed that over 50% of electrified rural households in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal don’t even get 12 hours of supply in a day.

The latest Global Off-Grid Solar Market Report shows that grid reliability challenges are more severe in dispersed rural areas than in cities. According to Anjali Garg, an energy specialist at International Finance Corporation, though India has put rural electrification in a sharper focus over the last few years, upgrading of local distribution infrastructure, including metering and billing, is crucial. “That will determine whether the schemes launched for total village electrification bear the desired results and lead to true 100% household electrification.”

To achieve a consistent round-the-clock power supply, considerable improvement in the operational efficiency of distributors through extensive and intensive change management and capacity-building programmes as well as strengthening of the electricity sub-stations and sub-transmission network are required. “At the same time, electricity must be priced rationally and the tariff structure is simplified,” Palit says.

Renewable energy solutions

To truly achieve universal access to energy, distributed renewables have a crucial role to play, experts say. Since power supplies in many villages remain unreliable, some people have been using solar energy, which has reached some villages before government power lines, to run their businesses. “A substantial ‘on-grid’ population in India has also been dependent on off-grid solutions,” says Garg. “Solar home system and mini-grid connections operating together is the most sustainable last-mile solution to reach consumers and achieve universal access to energy.”

Echoing similar sentiment, Skierka says, “Decentralized renewable energy solutions such as mini-grids and rooftop solar are a critical part of the solution to go where the grid can’t reach or reliably serve.”

Also, with India depending on coal to meet more than 60% of its electricity requirement and coal production stagnating, it will be no easy task for the government to fulfil its promise of uninterrupted power supply without the help of the solar energy sector.

Many of India's energy distribution companies have accumulated huge losses, and have no funds to keep buying much-needed power.

Power failures shave percentage points off the country's growth, inhibiting development and delaying the time when millions below the poverty line can live a life of dignity. However, India has made significant strides in electrification since 2000. Electricity reached 82% of the population in 2016, up from 43% at the turn of century, according to the International Energy Agency. “Also, there’s a precedent in India that large number of connections can be provided in short time,” says Palit. “West Bengal’s rural electrification rate more than doubled from 40% in 2011 to 95% in 2016, connecting an additional 7.8 million households.”

The government has said all of India’s rural Indian households will have electricity by 2019. And about 83% have electricity as of Monday, according to its real-time progress tracker. “I think a more reasonable time frame to connect all households across different states in India is 2021, which is a year before India celebrates 75 years of Independence,” says Palit.