The Centre has provided electricity to more than 2.6 crore poor households across the country under the Saubhagya programme.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana — the Saubhagya scheme — launched in October, 2017 with an outlay of ₹16,320 crore, 2.628 crore households in 28 States and Union Territories were electrified up to March 31, 2019, replied the Minister of State for Power, New and Renewable Energy RK Singh, in the Lok Sabha.

This means only 18,734 households in Chhattisgarh will have to be provided electricity as per the target under the scheme.

In Uttar Pradesh, 79,80,568 households were provided electricity, between October 11, 2017 and March 31, 2019, highest among all States.

The second biggest beneficiary was Bihar where 32,59,041 households were provided power.

Other major beneficiaries include Odisha (24,52,444), Madhya Pradesh (19,84,264), Rajasthan (18,62,736), Assam (17,45,149), Jharkhand (15,30,708) and Maharashtra (15,17,922).

Connecting more households

Meanwhile, seven States reported that the 19,09,679 un-electrified households, which were unwilling to join the scheme earlier, are now willing to get electricity connection. These households are now being connected. Of the total, more than five lakh households have been provided connections during April-October 2019 and the balance 13 lakh-plus households are to be supplied electricity.

The Saubhagya scheme was launched to achieve universal household electrification by providing last-mile connectivity to all households in rural and all poor households in urban areas across the country.

Under the Saubhagya scheme, free electricity connection is provided to poor households and for other rural households ₹500 is recovered by the Discoms/power departments from the beneficiary in 10 equal instalments in electricity bills.

In case of the households located in remote and inaccessible areas, power packs of 200 to 300 Wp (with battery bank) with a maximum of 5 LED lights, 1 DC Fan, 1 DC power plug willbe provided along with the provision of repair and maintenance (R&M) for five years.

The electricity consumption bill is borne by the consumers. The tariff is determined by the States with the approval of the regulator.