Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Government has constituted a District Level Committee under SAUBHAGYA scheme to ensure last mile connectivity of all the remaining un-electrified households in the state.
The committee comprises of District Development Commissioner (concerned) as chairman and members include Assistant Commissioner Development (concerned), Superintending Engineer (concerned), Power Development Department, Executive Engineer concerned Electric Division and Executive Officer concerned Municipalities .
The District Level Committee has been tasked to identify all the left out or remaining un-electrified households and villages; get the data and information duly vetted through concerned public representative; and furnish information to the Chief Engineer, Commercial Survey, J&K (Nodal Officer) within one month for compilation.
The SAUBHAGYA, a government of India scheme, funds the cost of last-mile connectivity to willing households to help achieve the goal of lighting every household by 31 December 2018.
Despite the government’s aggressive village electrification programme, the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana launched in July 2015, under which 78% of 18,000 villages have been electrified, it was realised that the problem of electricity ‘access’ wasn’t resolved. A village was declared to be electrified if 10% of the households are given electricity along with public places such as schools, panchayat office, health centres, dispensaries and community centres. With a large number of household still remaining without access to electricity, the scheme aims at ensuring the coverage of households as opposed to only villages.