Conquest of the last frontier

Vishal Kapoor
Ensuring Energy Access by 2030 is one of the major outcomes envisaged under the SDG-7 goals adopted by the United Nations. Energy-deprivation has a detrimental effect on the quality of life for the people. Apart from reducing economic opportunities for employment, energy poverty leads to poor social outcomes in the health and education sectors.
Lack of energy access impacts the vulnerable sections of the society the most. Apart from having gender inequality related implications of increased drudgery amongst women, lack of electrons flowing in households also leads to a proverbial disconnectedness impact of the unelectrified population from the rest of the world.
Up until 2014, a total of 18,374 census villages in India were devoid of electricity access. On the 15th of August 2015, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India announced from the ramparts of Red Fort a resolve of electrifying the remaining unelectrified villages across the country within a timespan of 1000 days.
It was a mammoth task to be completed within a challenging timeline under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY). After months of perseverance put in by the Power Sector of the Country, on the 28th of April 2018, with the lighting up of the first electric bulb in Leisang, a small village nestled in the rocky mountains of Manipur, India touched the historic milestone of achieving 100% Village Electrification.
The story of this electrification is not merely that of numbers, but of grit and toil and overcoming the insurmountable odds.
( To be contd)