GOI initiates various schemes to provide power supply to all households

Electricity is a concurrent subject, and the supply and distribution of electricity to all the consumers in urban and rural areas fall primarily under the purview of the respective state governments and/or state power utilities. The Government of India supplements the efforts of the States through its various schemes, including the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS), and the Ujjwal DISCOMs Assurance Yojana (UDAY), to help them achieve the objective of providing uninterrupted power supply to all households.

All the states and the union territories (UTs) have signed MoUs with the central government to ensure 24×7 power supply w.e.f. April 1, 2019. Many states and UTs claim to supply 24×7 power other than the planned outages and interruptions due to unforeseen events.

The Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) was launched in December 2014 for the following: strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution networks in urban areas; metering of distribution transformers, feeders, and consumers in urban areas; IT enablement works; enterprise resource planning (ERP); smart metering; gas-insulated sub-stations (GIS); and a real-time data acquisition system (RT-DAS). The scheme provided central funding for the completion of these works. Besides the aforesaid works, funds were also sanctioned by the government for underground (UG) cabling and aerial bunched (AB) cables, which helped in the reduction of aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses. All of these distribution infrastructure projects have aided the government’s efforts to provide 24×7 power to all.

The Government of India has also launched the Reforms-Based Result-Linked Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), with an outlay of ₹ 3,03,758 crore and an estimated GBS of ₹ 97,631 crore from the Central Government. The scheme seeks to improve the operational efficiency and financial sustainability of all DISCOMs and power departments, excluding private DISCOMs, by providing conditional financial assistance to DISCOMs for the strengthening of supply infrastructure and the installation of smart metres in pre-paid mode.