Published on Oct 24, 2018
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (abbr. DDUGJY) is a Government of India scheme designed to provide continuous power supply to rural India. The government plans to invest Rs. 756 billion (US$11 billion) for rural electrification under this scheme. The scheme will replace the existing Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY).
The DDUGJY scheme will enable to initiate much awaited reforms in the rural areas. It focuses on feeder separation (rural households & agricultural) and strengthening of sub-transmission & distribution infrastructure including metering at all levels in rural areas. This will help in providing round the clock power to rural households and adequate power to agricultural consumers .The earlier scheme for rural electrification viz. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) has been subsumed in the new scheme as its rural electrification component.
The Ministry of Power has launched a new app, GARV-II app to provide real-time data of all six lakh villages of the country. The app is envisaged to ensure transparency in the implementation of rural electrification programme. The new app will also enable the citizens to participate in the developmental works and can give their feedback and inputs related to the rural electrification programme. The participation of Citizens will enable public scrutiny of the rural electrification programmes. In addition, the village-wise works sanctioned under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) has been mapped to scrutinise the progress of work carried out under the project in each village.
The deadline for the Centre's rural electrification programme was May 2018. However, it was achieved before the deadline on April 28. Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi tweeted "Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever! I am delighted that every single village of India now has access to electricity." Despite this, several news reports claimed that the numbers were inflated, and villages were electrified only on paper.
• The rural agricultural and non-Agriculture consumers (domestic and non-domestic load) of the country are generally serviced through the local distribution network. Many rural areas of the country face insufficient electricity supply, consequently the distribution utilities are forced to resort to load shedding, thus affecting the power supply to both Agriculture and non-Agriculture consumers.
• The demand of power in rural areas is increasing day by day due to changing consumer base, improving living standards for which augmentation of rural infrastructure needs to be regularly undertaken
• The investment in the distribution network is low due to bad financial health of the distribution companies. Therefore in order to augment the reliability and quality of supply distribution network needs to be strengthened.
• To improve the commercial viability of power distribution, there is need for metering of all categories of the consumers
Keeping in view the above problems, Ministry of Power, Government of India has launched Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana for rural areas having following objectives:
1. To provide electrification to all villages
2. Feeder separation to ensure sufficient power to farmers and regular supply to other consumers
3. Improvement of Sub-transmission and distribution network to improve the quality and reliability of the supply
4. Metering to reduce the losses
Scheme has an outlay of Rs. 760 billion (US$11 billion) for implementation of the projects under which Government of India shall provide Grant of Rs. 630 billion (US$8.8 billion)
• All villages and households shall be electrified
• Increase in agriculture yield
• Business of Small and household enterprises shall grow resulting in new avenues for employment
• Improvement in Health, Education, Banking (ATM) services
• Improvement in accessibility to radio, telephone, television, internet and mobile etc.
• Betterment in social security due to availability of electricity
• Accessibility of electricity to schools, panchayats, hospitals and police stations etc.
• Rural areas shall get increased opportunities for comprehensive development
The Scheme is structured for planning and implementation through the following institutional structures:
Scheme has an outlay of Rs 76000 Cr for implementation of the projects under which Government of India shall provide Grant of Rs 63000 Cr. A total of Rs 14680 Cr worth projects have already been approved out of which projects amounting to Rs 5827 Crs have been approved for Bihar state.
