India Electrifies 286 Million Homes Under Saubhagya

19 Aug 2025 CW Team

The Government of India launched the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA) in October 2017 with the objective of providing electricity connections to all willing unelectrified households in rural areas and all willing poor households in urban areas. All sanctioned works under the scheme were successfully completed, and SAUBHAGYA was officially closed on 31 March 2022.

During the programme period, approximately 286 million households were electrified across the country. To ensure universal access, the Government of India continues to support states through the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), which is working on on-grid electrification of left-out households based on surveys conducted by utilities.

This includes electrification works for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) households under the PM-JANMAN (Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan), tribal households under DA-JGUA (Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan), Scheduled Caste households under the Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojana (PM-AJAY), and households in remote and border areas under the Vibrant Village Programme (VVP), wherever feasible.

As part of this effort, works worth Rs 64.87 billion have been sanctioned under RDSS for the electrification of 1.36 million households nationwide.

Additionally, under the New Solar Power Scheme, projects worth Rs 500 million have been sanctioned for off-grid solar-based electrification of 9,961 households as of 30 June 2025.

This information was shared by the Minister of State for Power, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

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