India’s government has made transparency a centerpiece of its rural electrification campaign, called Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY). A new update summarizing the status of India’s overall energy reform program (called 24x7 Power for All, or Ujwal Bharat) was recently issued, reporting that 73% of villages have been electrified under DDUGJY as of May 19, 2017.
A snapshot of rural electrification from the report is below. A full executive summary of DDUGJY as of June 2017 can be found here.
DDUGJY initially tracked village-level electrification only, but the government has now started to extend that monitoring to the household level. Government officials have said publicly that village electrification could be complete as early as the end of 2017, with total household electrification happening as early as 2019, or latest by 2022.
However, a recent draft National Energy Policy issued by Niti Aayog said India needs to “redefine the concept of ‘Electrification’, as occurs in the DDUGJY, to include stages of electrification in a village, with the village being deemed completely electrified if and only if ALL households of a village have an electricity connection, which witnesses reliable supply of electricity at least for a set number of hours.”
That would be significant change from the current definition of village electrification, which stipulates that just 10% of homes must be connected to power lines to qualify as an electrified village.