Bhubaneswar, July 16: A review meeting on rural electrification held on Friday under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, decided to facilitate power connectivity to all the villages by November 2016. Power connectivity has already been provided to 96 percent of the villages in the state, sources said.
Post meeting, Rajesh Verma, Principal Secretary of Energy Department informed, on the basis of census report of 2011, around 45,236 out of 47,677 villages have been provided with electricity connectivity by 30th June and among the remaining 2,441 villages, 541 has been identified as uninhabited ones. After the order given by Chief Secretary to speed up the work and completion of work within the said time, the works has been allocated to the PGCIL, OPTCL, OREDA and NTPC.
According to the sources, 275 villages would be electrified by OREDA by November. Micro-grid would be set up for 198 villages and remaining 76 villages would be covered through stand-alone solar projects. Around 12,000 household would be benefited through this scheme. PGCIL, NTPC and OPTCL have expedited their works to provide electric supply in 662,667 villages and 341 hamlets.
Notably, the state Government decided to complete the work by October-November, 2016. Universal access to electricity is expected to be finished by March 2017.
