Beatrice Lang
In 2018, the Indian government announced that all of its 597,464 villages had been electrified, 12 days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's deadline. However, this 100% electrification has been criticized as misleading, as 90% of people living in India's 18,452 targeted villages still lacked electricity in their homes. As of 2024, India has achieved 100% village electrification, but the focus has shifted to improving the reliability and quality of electricity supply, especially in rural areas, where power outages and erratic voltage fluctuations remain prevalent.
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What You'll Learn
India's 2018 announcement of 100% village electrification
In April 2018, the Indian government announced that all of the country's 597,464 census villages had been electrified. This was 12 days ahead of the deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The announcement was celebrated as a step towards India's development, and Modi himself tweeted that it would be "remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India".
However, a closer look at what constitutes "electrified" reveals that India still has a long way to go. According to official data, only 1,417 of India's 18,452 villages, or 7.3% of the total, have 100% household connectivity. The government deems a village "electrified" if power cables from the grid reach a transformer in each village and 10% of its households, as well as public places such as schools and health centers, are connected. As a result, 90% of people living in India's targeted villages are still without electricity in their homes, with 31 million homes in the dark.
To achieve true 100% household electrification, upgrading local distribution infrastructure, including metering and billing, is crucial. This includes improving the operational efficiency of distributors through extensive and intensive change management and capacity-building programs, as well as strengthening electricity sub-stations and the sub-transmission network.
To achieve a consistent round-the-clock power supply, the government must also focus on off-grid technologies and decentralised renewable energy solutions, such as mini-grids and rooftop solar. This is especially important in remote areas, where solar home systems have already been set up by the Saubhagya scheme.
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31 million homes without electricity
In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that all of the country's 597,464 villages had been electrified. This was a massive accomplishment and a significant stride toward electrification since 2000. However, a closer look at what constitutes "electrified" reveals that India still has a long way to go.
According to official data, only 1,417 of India's 18,452 villages, or 7.3% of the total, have 100% household connectivity. This means that about 31 million homes are still without electricity. The government deems a village "electrified" if power cables from the grid reach a transformer in the village and 10% of its households, as well as public places such as schools and health centers, are connected.
The lack of access to electricity in these 31 million homes is spread across major provinces of the country, such as Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, each having nearly 6 million unconnected households. Uttar Pradesh, a large north Indian state, accounts for 14.6 million households without electricity access.
To address this issue, the government launched a $2.5 billion program called Saubhagya to provide power connections to nearly every household by the end of March 2019. The goal of Saubhagya is very ambitious, and it aims to provide connections at a rate of 2.03 million households per month. However, data from the Saubhagya portal indicates that the connection rate has been lower than expected.
While India has made progress in electrifying its villages, the challenge of ensuring reliable and affordable electricity supply to all households remains. Upgrading local distribution infrastructure, including metering and billing, is crucial to achieving true 100% household electrification. Additionally, India's dependence on coal for more than 60% of its electricity requirements poses further challenges, as coal production has stagnated.
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The three-step electrification process
India has made significant strides in its journey toward universal electrification, with all of its 597,464 census villages electrified as of 2018. This achievement was announced 12 days ahead of the deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the work is far from complete, as approximately 31 million homes were still without electricity.
To address this energy access deficit, India has embarked on a three-step electrification process, outlined as follows:
Step 1: Extend Infrastructure to Villages
The first step involves extending the necessary infrastructure to villages that lack electricity. This includes the construction of power plants, transmission lines, and distribution networks. India's Ministry of Power plays a pivotal role in this process by providing loans and guarantees for public and private electricity sector infrastructure projects through entities like the Rural Electrification Corporation Limited and the Power Finance Corporation Limited.
Step 2: Connect Households
Once the infrastructure is in place, the next step is to connect individual households within the villages to the electrical grid. This entails installing power lines, meters, and billing systems. Government schemes, such as the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), have been instrumental in achieving this goal.
Step 3: Ensure Reliable and Affordable Supply
The third and most challenging step is to ensure that the electricity supply is reliable and affordable for all villagers. This requires efficient management of power distribution, strengthening of electricity sub-stations and sub-transmission networks, and rational pricing of electricity. The government has recognized the need for capital subsidy and soft long-term debt finances to reduce the cost of supply in rural areas.
In addition to the three-step process, India is also focusing on renewable energy solutions, such as solar power, to reach remote areas and provide sustainable energy access. The government has also committed to not building any new fossil fuel power plants in the utility sector beyond those already under construction, aiming for nearly 45% of its electricity to be generated from non-fossil fuel sources by 2029-2030.
Furthermore, Indian Railways is working towards becoming the largest Green Railways in the world, with a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions before 2030. It has already achieved 100% electrification in three zones, including the Kolkata Metro, West Central Railway, and East Coast Railway.
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The need for decentralised renewable energy solutions
India has made significant strides in rural electrification, with the government announcing the electrification of all its villages in 2018, 12 days ahead of the deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was a remarkable achievement for Asia's third-largest economy, which had been held back by power shortages for years.
However, despite these efforts, there are still millions of homes in India without access to electricity. According to some sources, there were 31 million Indian homes still in the dark at the time of the announcement, with 90% of people living in India's 18,452 targeted villages without electricity. This highlights the limitations of centralised grid systems, which often struggle to reach remote areas and provide reliable, uninterrupted power supply.
This is where decentralised renewable energy (DRE) solutions become essential. DRE refers to systems that use renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, micro-hydro, and biomass to generate, store, and distribute power in a localised manner. DRE solutions like mini-grids and rooftop solar panels have already proven to be a viable alternative to centralised grids, providing uninterrupted electricity supply to remote areas at a lower cost. They are particularly useful in rural areas, where they can supplement the grid supply and reduce reliance on diesel generators.
The Indian government has recognised the potential of DRE and released a framework to promote its use in livelihood applications. This framework aims to create an enabling ecosystem for the widespread adoption of DRE, with successful pilots and business models in various sectors, including agriculture, agro-processing, and fisheries. DRE is also expected to boost socio-economic growth by increasing access to essential services like health and education, creating green jobs, and paving the way for a self-reliant India.
However, DRE has not received sufficient support in terms of subsidy expenditure. Fossil fuel subsidies, especially for coal and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), continue to be much higher than those for renewables. To truly unlock the potential of DRE, the government must re-structure subsidy expenditure towards decentralised renewable energy and promote electric cooking programmes to reduce the demand for LPG.
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Transmission and distribution losses in the power sector
Electrification in India has been a three-step process: extending infrastructure to villages, connecting households, and ensuring reliable and affordable power supply. While India electrified all its villages in 2018, 31 million homes were still without electricity.
Transmission and distribution (T&D) losses refer to electricity that is generated but does not reach intended customers. India has one of the highest levels of T&D losses in the world, with losses amounting to almost 20% of generation, more than twice the world average. T&D losses are due to technical inefficiency and theft. Technical losses occur due to the resistance of wires and equipment as electricity passes through, and they normally account for 22.5% of losses. However, with good technical efficiency and low theft, T&D losses generally range between 6% and 8%. Most of India's T&D losses result from theft, such as tampering with meters or bribing utility workers.
To reduce T&D losses, India has made capacity additions and efficiency upgrades to its transmission grid. The National Load Dispatch Center began supervising regional load dispatch centers in 2009, and by the end of 2013, the country's five regional grids were interconnected to operate synchronously. India has also increased the mileage and capacity of high-voltage direct-current lines, which have lower losses over long distances. Supervisory control and data acquisition systems have been installed to monitor energy flow, and the government has set up a $1.3 billion National Electricity Fund to promote investment in the power distribution sector.
Upgrading local distribution infrastructure, including metering and billing, is crucial to reducing T&D losses. Properly calibrated meters are essential, and defective meters should be replaced immediately. Distribution losses can be increased by overloading distribution feeders, and it is suggested that the optimal average utilization rate of distribution network cables should be kept low, at around 30%. By forecasting future load, a balance can be maintained between investment cost and network losses.
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Frequently asked questions
No, as of 2018, all of India's 597,464 villages have been electrified.
While all villages have access to electricity, 31 million homes are still without power.
Electrification is a three-step process: extending infrastructure, connecting households, and ensuring reliable and affordable supply. The third step is the most challenging, and power supply in many villages remains unreliable.
There are notable differences in electricity supply quality between rural and urban areas. For example, in Uttar Pradesh, megacities experienced an average outage of 21 minutes, while rural areas' average outage duration was 90 minutes.
Decentralised renewable energy solutions, such as mini-grids and rooftop solar, have been proposed as a way to reach remote areas that the grid cannot serve reliably.
