With an aim to provide last mile electrical connectivity and ensure electrification of all the willing rural and urban households, the Prime Minister launched Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, also known as Saubhagya Scheme.
It is one of the world’s biggest universal electrification initiatives, with collaborative and concerted efforts of the Centre and the States.
Rural Electrification Corporation Limited (REC) is the nodal agency for the operationalization of the scheme throughout the country.
The prospective beneficiary households for free connection would be identified using Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 data.
Households not found eligible as per SECC data, would also be provided electricity connections on payment of Rs 500 recoverable in 10 instalments through electricity bills.
All DISCOMs including Private Sector DISCOMs, State Power Departments and RE Cooperative Societies are eligible for financial assistance.
Dedicated web portal for SAUBHAGYA has been developed to capture the information and progress of household electrification.
The list of benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana is as follows:
Access to electricity to all willing households
Substitution to kerosene
Improvement in educational services
Improvement in health services
Improvement in communications
Improvement in public safety
Increased job opportunities
Better quality of life, especially for women, in daily chores
The government aimed at achieving universal household electrification for providing electricity connections to all willing un-electrified households in rural areas and all willing poor households in urban areas in the country by March, 2019.
All households were reported electrified by the States, except 18,734 households in Left Wing Extremists (LWE) affected areas of Chhattisgarh as on 31.03.2019.
Subsequently, seven States namely Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Manipur, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had reported that around 19.09 lakh un-electrified households, identified before 31.03.2019, which were unwilling earlier but have expressed willingness to get electricity connection.
All these seven states have reported 100% household’s electrification as on 31.03.2021.
Adequate installed capacity exists in the country to meet the demand including for new household connections under SAUBHAGYA.
The total installed capacity of the country stands at 395.6 GW as on 28.02.2022 with average peak demand of 203 GW.
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