Electricity Access

In 2014, tens of millions of Indian homes still lacked an electricity connection, and thousands of villages were entirely off-grid. Two drives changed that: DDUGJY (2014) for village electrification and Saubhagya (2017) for last-mile household connections. Every inhabited village was declared electrified by April 2018. Saubhagya, launched in October 2017 when states counted about 4 crore homes still unconnected, electrified about 2.86 crore households before it closed in March 2022.

Under Saubhagya, about 2.86 crore households were connected, many free of cost for poor families. Access to power enables lighting for children's study, pumps for irrigation, refrigeration and cold storage, and electricity for small rural businesses — a quiet foundation beneath much of India's other development.

Reaching every home took a chain of missions: village electrification, then Saubhagya (2017), which wired up the last few crore un-electrified households. Power flows from generators through the national grid to state-owned distribution companies (DISCOMs), which deliver it to homes — and whose weak finances are the sector's central problem, since they often sell power below cost.

With access now near-universal, the goal shifts from any power to reliable, round-the-clock power. The Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme funds smart meters and network upgrades to cut the distribution losses (still around 15-25%) that drain DISCOMs — the reform that most determines whether every connection actually delivers steady electricity.

0 → ~2.86 crore homes electrified under Saubhagya (Oct 2017→Mar 2022); 2.63 crore by March 2019. Every village electrified by April 2018. Discom AT&C losses ~25%. Sources: Ministry of Power, DDUGJY, Saubhagya.