New Delhi: Prime Minister Modi on Sunday claimed that his government has electrified all villages in the country well ahead of the deadline. Twelve days left to the deadline, PM Modi made the announcement in a series of tweets on Sunday, saying that with Leisang village in Manipur, all villages in India are now electrified.
Modi said on Sunday that April 28 will be remembered as a historic day when a remote village in the northeast became the last to be connected to the power grid.
"Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever!" Modi wrote on Twitter, as various ministers took to social media to congratulate him.
According to government data, all of India's 5,97,464 census villages have now been electrified. When Modi took office in 2014, there were some 18,452 villages without electricity.
Modi had announced during his 2015 Independence Day address that the government would cover all of these 18,000 odd villages to supply them with electricity by 2018.
A village is declared electrified once 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.
28th April 2018 will be remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India. 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. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 29, 2018
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. Soon after PM Modi’s claim, many took to Twitter to complain that their villages are yet to be electrified.
Union minister Piyush Goyal on the other hand invited some ridicule when he tweeted out a NASA image of the Indian peninsula to laud the electrification achievement.
Under the decisive leadership of PM @NarendraModi India has finally been able to electrify all its villages before the set target date. With the elimination of darkness from the lives of fellow Indian villagers, we commit ourselves to building a new and #PowerfulIndia pic.twitter.com/TJ8irmx4tk— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) April 29, 2018
Opposition Congress grabbed the opportunity to launch an attack on the BJP-led government and PM Modi with spokesperson Randeep Surjewala comparing figures from the UPA days to those of the NDA government.
2/2 Dear Modiji/Piyushji, 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. pic.twitter.com/U270EK2pee — Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) April 29, 2018
He wrote: “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!”
In another tweet Surjewala wrote: “Dear Modiji/Piyushji, 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.”
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