Bihar completes 100% electrification two months before deadline

Bihar, the state which had the second-biggest job after Uttar Pradesh under the PM’s Saubhagya scheme, is expected to declare as early as on Thursday that it has completed its target of 100 per cent electrification of willing households in the state.

“We aim to declare as early as October 25 that we have completed the job and we have saturated all willing households. A mopping up exercise is going on,” Bihar power secretary Pratyaya Amrit told ET.

This will be almost two months ahead of the national deadline of December 31 fixed by the Centre for completing the target under the scheme. Bihar had nearly 32 lakh households to cover by electrification under the scheme that was launched a year ago.


This was second only to Uttar Pradesh which had as many as 1.39 Cr houses to cover by formal electricity connections under the scheme. UP has only managed to achieve 36 per cent of its target so far and has over 88 lakh houses still out of the net of formal electricity connections, raising doubts if UP will make the cut by December 31. But Bihar has managed to make most of its districts full-electrified.

A senior government official in Delhi said one reason behind this was the close coordination between Union power Minister RK Singh, who is an MP from Bihar’s Arrah, and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.