Power ministry asks for Rs 36,000 crore for meeting RGGVY target

30 Nov 2012 Evaluate

To meet the target of providing electricity to all households by 2017, Power minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has requested the finance minister to allocate Rs. 36,000 crore for meeting the 12th plan targets of providing  electricity to 5,74,000 rural households under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY).

The Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) was a flagship scheme of the UPA-I that had the ambitious goal of completing rural electrification by providing access to all villages and households. As per 2011 census results, only 55.3 per cent of rural households in the country use electricity for lighting. The government is aiming to provide power to 5,74,000 households in the next five years under the RGGVY. The Centre provides 90 per cent of the project cost as capital subsidy for establishing Rural Electricity Distribution Backbone (REDB) and Village Electrification Infrastructure (VEI) and provides free electricity single point connection to BPL households under RGGVY.

Talking about the transformers provided under RGGVY getting burnt, the power minister has said that overloading due to illegal connections was the reason behind that. Scindia further said that repair/replacement of burnt transformers is the responsibility of the implementing agency before the infrastructure is handed over to the discoms/power departments. After handover, the responsibility shifts to the discoms/power departments, who are expected to carry out the same as per their norms and procedures. At present, Bihar is the worst affected state with 6,236 RGGVY transformers getting burnt, followed by Jharkhand 4,392 and Orissa 1,451 transformers.

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