About DDUGJY
In order to provide rural electrification across all homes in Indian villages, the Union Government headed by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modihas approved the launch of the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) on 20th November, 2014.
Under the DDUGJY, the elements of agricultural and non-agricultural feeders are going to be separated for the effective rostering in rural area units. The theme additionally includes strengthening and augmentation of sub transmission and distribution infrastructure in rural areas, as well as metering of distribution transformers and feeders.
The DDUGJY has replaced the present Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) that was started by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on 4th April, 2005 to provide access to electricity to all rural households in un-electrified and electrified villages inside the whole country.
The DDUGJY can benefit rural households significantly. Considering that load shedding continues to be rampant in several parts of the country, effective implementation of the scheme is required. Power is extremely vital for growth and development of the country.
The features of RGGVY have been subsumed in the new scheme of DDUGJY and the unspent amount of RGGVY will be carried forward to DDUGJY. The RGGVY covered electrification of all the villages within the country except the villages under the programmes run by the Ministry of Non-conventional Sources (MNES) for providing electricity from non-conventional energy sources. With the launch of DDUGJY, the "accelerated electrification of one lakh villages and one crore households "and also the Minimum Needs Programme (MNP) for rural electrification has got integrated with it. The scheme is being enforced through the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) that has been selected as nodal agency by the Ministry of Power. Earlier this scheme was called Accelerated Village Electrification Scheme (AVES) and later renamed as RGGVY. It had been taken as one of the " Bharat Nirman" programme by the erstwhile Planning Commission and the timeline of the scheme had been extended by another two years.
Why DDUGJY Project Started?
The concept of rural electrification in India has undergone varied restructuring programmes. Until 1997, the focus was on electrification for irrigation to extend the agricultural production of the country. Later this modified to an additional targeted approach, recognising the importance of reaching electricity to rural areas.
The declared aim of the electrification programme is to ensure economic development by providing electricity access to all villages and households to enhance the living standards and employment opportunities within the rural areas.
The UPA government had started a flagship programme, RGGVY, aimed to accelerate the pace of village electrification programme within the country. The RGGVY aimed at electrification of over one lakh un-electrified villages and providing electricity connections to 2.34 crore rural households.
Area & Implementation
The DDUGJY scheme will help in improvement of power supply in rural households as well as reduction of peak loads. There will also be improvements in billed energy based on metered consumption and access of electricity to rural households. Through the new scheme, intra-state transmission and distribution system for north eastern states will be strengthened.
During the initial phase of RGGVY, about 12 states of country named Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and West Bengal and Bihar participated in the programme. Union Territory (UT) of Lakshadweep was also on the national network during the programme.
In the first phase, village electrification is under progress in 20 districts of Purvanchal; the electrification work of five districts was dispensed by the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) and the remaining work of 15 districts was carried out by the six acknowledged companies on turnkey basis. In first phase, un-electrified villages are hand-picked for electrification. For this scheme 90 percent of expenditure has been supported by government of India as help and balanced is organised by UPPCL as a loan.
Three -Tier Quality Monitoring Mechanism
First Tier: The Project implementing agency (PIA) would be accountable to the 1st tier of the standard management structure. PIA can have interaction with third party scrutiny agency, whose responsibility can be to guarantee that all the materials to be utilised and also the craft adapt to the prescribed specifications. This scrutiny can cover around 500 villages on random sample basis for every project.
Second Tier: Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) can get the scrutiny done of the works/ materials. The scrutiny can cover quality checks at pre-shipment stage at the vendors' outlet for major materials and 100 percent villages on random sample basis.
Third Tier: Freelance Evaluators (Individuals / Agency) can be engaged by the Ministry of Power for analysis, at random, of offer and erection under the programme. All works rated 'unsatisfactory' shall be re-inspected by RQM or NQM once a rectification report has been received from the REC Quality organiser. Continual adverse reports regarding quality of works in a given district/state may entail suspension of the programme in that space until the underlying causes of defective work are self-addressed. The standard management mechanism would be ruled by the standard management manual that has been set up by REC for the scheme.
Cost of the Project
The cost of implementing the two components of the DDUGJY scheme will be Rs 43033 crore and this includes required budgetary support of Rs, 33453 crore from the Union Government within the entire period for implementation.
Balance work pertaining to rural electrification will now come under the DDUGJY scheme as a distinct component for electrification of rural areas. CCEA has approved the scheme cost of 39275 crore rupees including budgetary support of Rs 35447 crore.
Achievement of the Earlier Scheme for Rural Electrification
The Evaluation Organisation of Planning Commission released the evaluation report on RGGVY Programme on May, 2014. The report stated that the overall achievement of the scheme is 93.3 per cent as far as the household electrification is concerned. The good thing about the household electrification is that achievement in sample district average is over 80 per cent in all the sample states. Five states (out of the 15 sample states) AP, Haryana, HP, Karnataka and UP have achieved 100 per cent in relation to respective target. In terms of physical achievements of coverage of villages, RGGVY has done reasonably well in sample states.
Regarding intensification of electrified villages, the overall performance does not appear satisfactory at 53 per cent achievement.. However, spectacular progress has been reported from six states, Andhra Pradesh (98 per cent), Gujarat (97 per cent), and Tamil Nadu (89 per cent). Poor progress is seen in Haryana (8 per cent), Rajasthan (27 per cent), Odisha (34 per cent), Mysore (38 per cent), and Himachal Pradesh (29 per cent). These states have given priority to un-electrified/de-electrified villages.
The Ministry of Power has sanctioned 921 projects to electrify 1,24,755 unelectrified villages, intensive electrification of 603581 partially electrified villages and to provide free electricity connections to 405.72 lakh BPL rural households. The project works in 1, 08,661 unelectrified villages and intensive electrification of 311881 partially electrified villages have been completed and 219.77 lakh free electricity connections have been released to BPL households, till 30th September, 2014.
Although the scheme was launched in the year 2005, the scheme wasn't enforced within the same year in all the states. Timely completion of projects needed an excellent degree of cooperation and coordination. A number of sample states had already achieved 100 percent electrification whereas others are way behind. The foremost reason for incomplete work is attributable to delay in receiving letter of award (LOA) and land acquisition.
Under the scheme, 90 percent capital grant is provided by Government of India for overall value of comes. Cumulatively until FY10, works in 190,858 villages were completed and free connections to over ten million below personal income (BPL) households were given. In 2012, against a target of one lakh villages and 1.75 crore BPL households, the government has provided electricity to 1.04 lakh villages and provided free connections to 1.95 crore BPL households. The addition of over 20,500 MW in 2011-12 was the highest ever annual capacity addition in any year. The government has achieved a milestone by successfully testing the world's highest voltage test station of 1200 KV at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.
Under Phase-I of RGGVY, the Ministry of Power sanctioned 576 projects for 546 districts to electrify 1, 10,886 villages and to provide free electricity connections to 2.29 crore BPL rural households. As on 31st December, 2012, works in 1, 06,335 villages have been completed and 204.47 lakh free electricity connections have been released to BPL households. About 72 projects under Phase-II covering electrification of 1909 un-electrified villages, 46606 un-electrified habitations, 53,505 partially electrified villages, 25,947 partially electrified habitations and release of free electricity connections to 45,59,141 BPL households have also been sanctioned with an outlay of Rs 7964.32 crore.
Facts about the Earlier Programme
RGGVY has been instrumental in providing power to BPL households and to some APL households specifically in states wherever rural electrification intensity was low. However, the expectation of exaggerated employment and financial gain of the beneficiary households has not materialised, though variety of different associated advantages have increased to rural economy.
Aims:
- Improvement in hours of power supply in rural areas.
- Reduction in peak load.
- Improvement in billed energy based on metered consumption, and
- Providing access to electricity to rural households.
Components of DDUGJY
Separation of agriculture and non-agriculture feeders facilitating judicious restoring of supply in the rural areas.
Strengthening and augmentation of sub-transmission & distribution infrastructure in rural areas, including metering of distribution transformers/feeders/consumers.
Last Updated on : January 2, 2015
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