Rural electrification costs must be modified, says House panel

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy has asked the Ministry of Power to revisit the cost of village electrification taking into account the ground realities of each state. In its report tabled on Tuesday, the committee while reviewing the implementation of the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana said that the practice of “presuming the cost of village electrification as the same for similar areas/terrain through out the country without factoring in the state specific conditions, disregards the ground realities”.

The committee first says that the cost of electrification on an unelectrified village and that of carrying out “intensive electrification” of already electrified village varies from Rs 13 lakh to Rs 18 lakh and Rs 4 lakh to Rs 6 lakh respectively — in normal terrain and in hilly, tribal and desert areas.

However, based on some case studies, the committee said “the cost of Rs 18 lakh for village electrification in hilly, tribal and particularly in the desert areas is not sufficient as compared to the cost of electrifying a village in normal terrain”.

In that regard, the committee said that the present cost of norms for village electrification should be “revisited by the government and suitably modified taking into account the local conditions in the terrain and areas in different states where electrification has to be carried out”.