In 2013 one of the very moving headlines of BBC was “Indian Village gets Electricity after 65 years, Villagers blame apathy of government for such a state”. These headlines would have definitely hurt the respect of several Indians because they were true but very few would have decided to do anything about it, especially the ones who are responsible for it. The lack of access to electricity in our country which is the basic indicator of rural development does not only show apathy but also the absence of any development needed for a civilisation. In many aspects we Indians are still at the phase of establishing a civilisation be it at the social or economic front, years backwards to our other counterparts.
Over the years several namesake programmes have been launched to bring electrification but they have massively failed. The UPA government after much fanfare had launched the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana in 2005 to bridge the urban gap and bring steady electricity to the rural areas. The scheme had targeted to provide access to electricity to all households by 2010, but it only saw deadline extensions and even provision of free electricity to BPL households was not achieved in any state. Rural electrification is not just to certify villages as being electrified or not but the major challenge is the establishment and maintenance of distribution lines and transformers. Till now the electrification programmes have been only “Show Offs”, achieving targets by grid extensions. One such statistics is that In 1990 , only 40 % of India was electrified as against 75% in 2012 but what is alarming is that even with the sharp growth in rural electrification there is little increase in actual power consumption in rural areas. The faster pace of electrification has not changed the life of an average citizen much. In fact in most states the per capita consumption of electricity has shown a fall. Madhya Pradesh, which has been projected as a model of electrification, with nearly all its villages electrified by 2011-12, shows a fall of 0.4 units in rural per capita consumption of electricity.

As of 31st March 2015 , there are still around 20,000 un-electrified villages in this country, and just to make it clear Un-electrified means that the population in these villages have never even lighted a bulb in their homes. 60% of India’s population lives in the villages , that is around 114 million households. Until and Unless benefits of development are brought to this section of the society, India will always remain just a developing country.

Another major hassle in rural areas is load shedding, in load shedding an entire feeder is switched off for about more than 15 hrs at a time ,which effects hundreds of household at a time. Electricity in rural areas is not only needed for domestic use but also for agricultural purposes. Another issue affecting the villagers is the lack of regular and reliable supply, most villages get the so called single phase power supply whereas most irrigation pumps need a three phase power supply, thus the agricultural output also gets affected.
The need of the hour is meaningful electrification where villages get actual service provision and not constant load shedding, at least as suggested by the Hindu, the government must start with 98 % supply during peak hours, if even this is not met then a village is not typically meaningfully electrified. Energy services are essential for both social and economic progress for a community,nation and society and without it none of the millennium goals can be achieved.
A research paper by a leading NGO, clearly highlights that Access to electricity in rural areas has been regarded synonymous with rural electrification, implemented through the extension of the grid. The problems of high transmission and distribution losses; frequent disruption in supply of grid power, practical difficulties and financial non-viability of extending grid to remote and inaccessible areas; dispersed population in small villages resulting in low peak loads, poor financial health of the state electricity boards, etc. are plaguing the rural electrification programme in India. Furthermore, there is a large body of evidence to show that the centralised system has not been able to balance demand and supply, resulting in inequities and environmental degradation, leaving over 40% of the Indian rural population with no access to power.
With the above said problems the government must work towards concrete solutions where there is better implementation, more monitoring and accountability, Holistic inclusion and Decentralisation of electricity. The New NDA government seems committed to the cause with major funds allocation on their way through the new Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana where they are aiming for separate feeders and funds for both agriculture and rural domestic consumption. Though the Government seems to be on the right track it is still early to comment. In the end the major battle for any government will remain not just to electrify villages but also to energise them.

An Article by Anisha Ahuja

Homegrown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra has slashed the price of its electric small car ‘e2o’ by Rs 92,000 following the launch of a central government scheme offering incentives on electric and hybrid vehicles.

The e2o, manufactured by the company’s arm, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles will see a reduction in price by 16 per cent from its earlier price of Rs 5.71 lakh (on road Delhi) along with a fixed energy fee of Rs 2,999 per month for five years or 50,000km.

The car will now be available at Rs 4.79 lakh (on road Delhi), while the fixed energy fee remains the same.

“We have reduced the prices of e2o by 16 per cent across the markets where it is being sold currently. The reduction makes the car more affordable and attractive to own,” Mahindra & Mahindra president & chief executive (automotive) Pravin Shah

The price cut is a direct result of the government’s recent announcement of the FAME (faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles) scheme, he added.

Under the FAME scheme, the government offers incentives on electric and hybrid vehicles of up to Rs 29,000 for bikes and Rs 1.38 lakh for cars.

FAME is a part of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan. The scheme envisages Rs 795 crore support in the first two fiscals starting with the current year.

Meera, a resident of Semri Malvalag, in Uttar Pradesh has been living in the dark since she was married, and came into this village, to her husbands home. Her joy knew no bounds, when her home was ‘electrified’ with a solar home lighting system set up that can provide light and fan to her home, when needed. The system can provide light during the evening hours, helping her perform house hold work much more efficiently than before. Her children can study better. Importantly, the overall interaction within the house has improved, and with lighting inside the house, seemingly, the overall standard of living has improved so much.

Ab humare bacche bhi pad likh sakhte hain, aur aage bad sakte hain, humara time to nikal gaya par unko to time accha nikal jawega [Our children can also study at night, and move ahead in their lives, we have lived our lives, but the children have their lives ahead and hopefully that will be much better]

 

When is a village termed electrified?
According to the Ministry of Power, a village is termed electrified when –

– Basic infrastructure such as Distribution Transformer and Distribution lines are provided in the inhabited locality as well as the Dalit Basti hamlet where it exists.
– Electricity is provided to public places like Schools, Panchayat Office, Health Centers, Dispensaries, Community centers etc.
– The number of households electrified should be at least 10% of the total number of households in the village.
The important figure here is 10%. An electrified village doesn’t necessarily mean that all its residents enjoy the benefits of electricity, and thus figures representing the number of electrified villages can be misleading.
Why is rural electrification important ?
In rural areas, electricity finds one more important area of deployment that is absent in urban areas and that is mechanization of many farming operations like threshing, milking and hoisting grain for storage. From an Indian perspective, this is extremely important since till this day, approximately 50 percent of the Indian population is dependent on agriculture as their source of livelihood. The novel visions of our Prime Minister won’t see the light of the day until this sector flourishes.
Like education, rural electrification too has manifold effects in the day-to-lives of a rural resident. It frees up significant amounts of human time and labour. Women across villages in India spend hours and hours on procuring water for their families. Imagine the impact it can create if these women can utilize this time spent doing arduous labour for some economic activity!
It also has a direct effect on a community’s daylight hours. People can work longer which translates to better income and better standard of living.

What are some of the positive trends in rural electrification?

Much of this improvement has been attributed to India which witnessed mass migration to powered metropolitan areas. Electrification rates in India in the year 1990 were only 43 percent as opposed to vast improvement to about 75% in 2012.
But picture abhi baaki hai…
While UTs like Lakshwadeep, Delhi and Daman and Dui record electrification rates of over 99%, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar lie on the other end of the spectrum with dismal rates of 37%, 36.8% and 16.4% only. Thus even with decent levels of electrification in the country, the widespread regional disparities are a matter of genuine concern for policymakers and regulators.

In 1990, 40 percent of the world population (2.2 billion people) still lacked power. Nineteen years later in 2009, this figure changed to 18 percent, affecting 1.456 billion people. In terms of percentage of households using electricity as their primary source of lighting, we witnessed an an increase from 55.8% in 2001 to 67.2% in 2011.
What is India’s role in this?

What are some of the policies and programmes adopted by the Indian government?
Policies
1. National Electricity Policy 2005
2. National Rural Electrification Policy, 2006

Schemes
1. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)
2. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana
3. Remote Village Electrification Programme
4. Village Energy Security Security programme
5. Minimum Needs Program (MNP)
6. Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY)
7. Kutir Jyoti Scheme
8. Accelerated Rural Electrification Programme (AREP)

An Article written by Swati Gugnani

Expansion of electricity is vital to both economic and social development of a country. The current state of Electricity in most of the states in India is worse than ever which includes Nagaland, Orissa , Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh etc. The Census of India 2011 indicates that 44 % of India’s rural households continue to depend on Kerosene for lighting, while even today 0.5 percent of its population or close to 897,760 households does not have access to lighting at all.
Industry , Farmers and household have invested a substantial amount of their capital on various alternative power equipments such as generators, inverters, and Voltage stabilizers to fulfill the power demand. India’s annual per capita electricity consumption is 400 Kwh, which is far behind than other countries like China ( 900Kwh) , Malaysia (2500Kwh) and Thailand (1500Kwh). Inspite of various attempts to achieve 100% electrification , India has achieved 44% electrification to the rural households.
Solar is by far the largest energy resource available on Earth. Grids may fail to reach a place,but sun doesn’t. Solar photovoltaic aka “solar cells” are growing faster than any other energy technology. Total installed PV capacity has doubled every two years since the inception year 2000. This Moore’s Law-like growth shows no sign of slowing. If PV capacity were to keep growing at the current rate, solar panels would satisfy all electricity demand within a decade. They are by far the leading solar technology in terms of total deployment, operates silently at low temperatures, and it doesn’t require much maintenance. Lack of maintenance is nice, lack of carbon footprint is nicer.
Viable and reliable electricity through solar energy in Villages will result in increased productivity in
a) agriculture and labor,
b) improvement in the delivery of health and education,
c) access to communications (radio, telephone, television, mobile telephone),
d) improved lighting after sunset,
e) facilitating the use of time and energy-saving mills, motors, and pumps, and
f) increasing public safety through outdoor lighting.

With the ever increasing population and limited amount of fossil fuels (coal, crude oil etc) which upon burning warms our palnet and disturbs the ecological balance . We have to shift to a technology which is clean, green and promising.The only thing which comes into our mind is Decentralised Generation

India is really lucky to receive high volumes of solar light and energy all throughout the year. India receives sun shine over 300 days a year which is most of the time. About 5,000 trillion kWh per year energy is incident over India’s land area. Theoretically, a small fraction of the total incident solar energy (if captured effectively) can meet the entire country’s power requirements. Tapping into it effectively will help resolve energy crisis in many regions of the country.
It’s almost certainly not the case that 100% power will be solar energy , But it’s pretty much believable to imagine that over 40 years, solar energy could account for more than half of India’s Rural power. Solar today is about where electricity was in the late 19th century. Many had seen the promise, but few could fully grasp the possibilities

An Article by Samad Khan