Districts asked to identify un-electrified areas

Srinagar, Jan 30: Government on Tuesday asked the districts to “identify and furnish information” about the un-electrified areas in the state.
Under the centrally-sponsored Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA) scheme, the government has constituted district-level committees in the state to “ensure last mile connectivity of all the remaining un-electrified households in J&K”.
While the Deputy Commissioners of the respective districts would head the committees, the Assistant Commissioners Development, Superintending Engineers Power Development Department, Executive Engineers Electric Division and Executive Officers of the municipalities in the respective districts have been named their members.
After identifying the un-electrified households in their districts, the respective committees have been asked to get the information “duly vetted” and furnish it to the government “within one month”.
To mention, 110 villages, comprising around 3.5 lakh households and around 12 lakh people, in the state are still un-electrified, as per a PDD official.
Of the 110 un-electrified villages, the official from the PDD said that 42 villages, comprising of around 1.4 lakh households, were un-electrified in Kashmir alone.
These villages fall in Gurez, Machil and Keran areas, as per the official.
In Jammu division, Reasi, Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts have villages yet to be electrified.
“The un-electrified villages get three hours of power supply through generators,” the official said. “Government is paying for diesel to run these.”
While the government, in early October, had set a target to electrify 51 un-electrified villages in the state, an online portal dedicated to the development on SAUBHAGYA scheme across India reveals that till date, not even a single household had been electrified since October 11.
As per the portal, 2,66,275 households out of the 12,73,430 rural households in the state are still un-electrified.
Launched in September 2017, SAUBHAGYA, an Rs 16,320-crore, government-of-India scheme, aims to provide electricity connections to over 40 million families in rural and urban areas by December 2018.
J&K is one among the states having vast hydro power potential from where electricity is being supplied to several parts of India while the state is itself suffering for want of power.