Electrification in India- Ongoing Process

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Electrification of India - the ongoing process

Recently there were twits by various ruling party leaders patting their back for completing electrification of all villages. However what needs to be seen is that what's happening to those who are already having connection and for how long do they get power. 

Also as against previous Government's track record of 10k villages electrified per year this Government has done only 4.5 k per year. They also claim that work has been done before target date but then who has set target ? If target was achievable earlier then who decided late deadline ?

Electricity transmission and distribution is required to electrify every nook and corner of country. While bringing electricity to cities and towns was done quickly there was challenge in taking electricity to villages mainly which are at remote location. We should not be surprised but city of Mumbai had 2 locations within its vicinity wherein there was no electricity till recently. One was adivasi pada at forest of Aarey Colony and other was Gharapuri iland or popularly known as elephanta caves had no power connection till recently. Due to regular visits by foreign tourists to Gharapuri Government had installed one diesel generator and contract was given to run the same. Contractor used to run the same intermittently and families staying at Gharapuri could get power. Later they had to lay underground HV cable to ensure power supply to this island.

The first major challenge of electricity supply is Generation of electricity. Earlier it was domain of Government only and they could not keep pace with demand. Generation was also restricted to Thermal , Hydel and Nuclear. 

UPA Government took first step in opening up this sector to Private entrepreneurs and including to companies from foreign shore. The business model was to come to India and set up generation plant and then sign power purchase agreement with state governments and sell electricity to them.Over a period plant cost shall be recovered. This has made tremendous progress in Power Generation and our capacity almost doubled from 70 k MW to 140 k MW.
Another thing which has added to Generation increase is Solar and Wind farms which were set up. The process of encouraging alternative energy sources started much earlier and Government gave incentives to companies and individuals to invest in such ventures. The technology also improved and cost of generation of such energy has come down. Today it is lower than even conventional energy.

Having taken control of Generation part State Electricity Boards and Power Grid have done good job of laying transmission lines. The grid strengthening was done and also corridors were laid to evacuate power from Solar and Wind farms. 

The process of laying distribution lines started long back under Rajiv Gandhi Vidyut Vitaran Yojna. The task of reaching to every village with difficult accessibility , rough terrain and resistance by locals to lay line through their land holding was very difficult. The EPC contractors have done this work. As such so much hard work has gone into to reach this stage and present Government patting their back and taking full credit for the same is not correct.
If Leisang village in Manipur was last to get electrified let us celebrate and we should be happy that all those villagers will be able to live better lifestyle now. However I am sure that earlier they were running solar pumps , Solar water heaters and using photovoltaic cells for charging their cell phones.
We should not forget ground reality that many of these villages can afford only subsidized agricultural power.

Due to mankind spreading its habitation to remote areas the demand for electricity in such areas shall arise and hence laying of lines.

 Further earlier model of Generation , Transmission and Distribution is becoming redundant and electricity shall be produced by community locally for their own consumption. Also it would be clean energy !

Datt Udas
datt.udas63@gmail.com