The Government of India launched ‘Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana(RGGVY) – Programme for creation of Rural Electricity Infrastructure & Household Electrification, in April 2005 for providing access to electricity to rural households. As on 30.04.2012, against the targeted coverage of 1.10 lakh un/de-electrified village and release of free electricity connections to 2.30 crore BPL households, electrification works in 1.05 lakh un/de-electrified villages have been completed and 1.95 crore free electricity connections to BPL households have been released under RGGVY.
The States of Delhi, Goa and Union Territories of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Puducherry have not participated in RGGVY Programme as they had achieved 100% electrification of villages. In remaining 27 states, RGGVY Projects for 579 districts have been sanctioned.
The Ministry of Power interacts with State Governments frequently and obtains their feedback while framing and implementing the scheme.
Four independent agencies namely M/s The Energy and Resources Institute(TERI), M/s Integrated Research for Action and Development (IRADe), M/s. Sambodhi & M/s. Tetratech, have been engaged for conducting impact evaluation studies of RGGVY programme in 20 States. While conducting these studies, the agencies are also required to interact with the beneficiaries, i.e. villagers and Panchayat representatives, to seek their views about implementation of the scheme. The evaluation report of 12 States, out of 20 States where the study has been taken up, have already been received. Major findings in the reports are as below:
i) Electrification of villages have resulted in socioeconomic improvements and villagers are able to utilize electrical appliances for additional comfort convenience and education of their children.
ii) It has been reported that some economic activities like agarbatti making, bamboo items etc. have started specially in the States like West Bengal & Tripura, where electric supply is better.
iii) Villagers demand coverage of left out BPL households and habitations.
iv) There is demand for more number of distribution transformers to cater to higher Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Above Poverty Line(APL) loads.
iv) The villagers demanded increased hours of electric supply especially in the evening hours. They also required more quality and reliability of electric supply, i.e. reduction in unscheduled power cuts.
Under RGGVY, electrification of un-electrified BPL households is provided free electricity service connection. Infrastructures created under RGGVY can be used for providing connections to APL by respective distribution utilities. APL households are required to pay for prescribed connection charges and no subsidy is available for this purpose.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Power Shri K.C.Venugopal in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.