PM Modi claims every Indian village now has electricity, Congress says BJP taking ‘fake credit’

I salute the efforts of all those who worked tirelessly on the ground, including the team of officials, the technical staff and all others, to make this dream of a #PowerfulIndia a reality. Their efforts today will help generations of Indians in the coming years. pic.twitter.com/t8WjZgpNuT

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 29, 2018

In his Independence speech in 2015, PM Modi had promised that the government will ensure the access of electricity to 18,000 villages which lived in darkness, within the next 1000 days. A village is considered electrified if it has the basic electrical infrastructure and 10 percent of its households and public places including schools, local administrative offices and health centres have power.

The World Bank said in a report last year that globally 1.06 billion people had no electricity, with India and Nigeria topping the list of most power-deficient countries. According to the government data, all of India’s 597,464 census villages have been electrified. With an aim to provide electricity to over four crore families in rural and urban areas by December 2018, PM Modi in September had launched Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana ‘Saubhagya’, a Rs 16,320-crore scheme ushered in for the upliftment for the underprivileged section. He had also launched Deendayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana to initiate electrical reforms in rural villages.

Reacting to BJP’s claims, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said that it was Congress that electrified 97 per cent of villages in the country but “did not boast”. “On 26th May,2014; only 18,452 villages were without electrification. BJP Govt took 46 months to complete this at at an average of 4,813 villages per year. This is – ‘celebrating inefficiencies’ & taking ‘fake credit’ for Congress work,” he said on Twitter.

Dear Amit Shahji,

India has 6,49,867 villages. Congress connected 97% with electricity.

During UPA (2004-14), Congress electrified 1,07,600 villages.

In 60 yrs, Congress average is electrifying 10,000 villages per year.

Congress created #PowerfulIndia but didn’t boast!
1/2 pic.twitter.com/pktrzcqqD2

— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) April 29, 2018