Oram reminder to Naveen on rural power supply

BHUBANESWAR: Days  after his party took on the State Government for slow rural electrification progress, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram on Sunday urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to complete rural infrastructure programme within the revised time frame.
Noting that 347 villages of the State have not been electrified as on September 24, Oram in a letter to the Chief Minister requested for taking necessary measures to expedite the village electrification programme. “I request your urgent personal intervention to review the progress at the earliest and issue necessary instructions to all concerned to ensure electrification of the remaining 347 villages of Odisha within the targeted time frame,” Oram said.

As per the GARV portal of the Ministry of Power, 330 villages are to be electrified while 515 villages are uninhabited. Out of 86.6 lakh rural households of the State, 53.98 lakh families have access to power supply. Over 32.62 lakh families in the State still depend on lanterns.
Enclosing a list of unelectrified villages with his letter, Oram reminded the Chief Minister that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised the nation to electrify all villages by May 1, 2018. The BJP-led NDA Government had taken up the task of electrifying 18,452 unelectrified villages after it came to power. Modi, in his Independence Day speech in 2015, had set a target of electrifying these villages in 1,000 days (by May 1, 2018), he said.

Meanwhile, the Centre has advanced the deadline for the rural electrification programme. As per the revised target, village electrification should be completed by the end of this month which appears remote. As per the list, highest number of 69 unelectrified villages are in Kalahandi district followed by 65 in Rayagada, 33 in Koraput and 31 in Nayagarh districts. As per the revised norms, a village will be considered electrified only after providing electricity to 100 per cent households. Earlier, the village electrification was considered completed if power lines were provided to a village with power connection to at least 10 per cent of the families.