Lights on: Kerala is now fully electrified

The Kerala government will make the official declaration on Monday

The Kerala government is all set to declare the state as fully electrified. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will make the official announcement on Monday. However, the 'complete electrification' has been achieved excluding 1,000 families.

Kerala's power minister M M Mani said that with 1.25 crore Kerala State Electricity Board consumers, the state has provided connections to all households, except 1,000 families. The exception includes 150 families belonging to tribal communities living in dense forest areas. The minister also maintained that electricity could not reach the families due to lack of permissions from the forest department and court cases in setting up cables.

Out of the 4,70,000 families that received electricity ever since the LDF government came to power, 1,50,000 were provided under the total electrification scheme, the minister claimed. Keeping in mind the central government norm that if two public utilities in a village are electrified and 10% of total houses in that village are given power connections, that village can be declared as completely electrified, Kerala government is set to declare the state as fully electrified.

The government said that drives were conducted to identify houses without electricity and simplified process of registration and application. "Houses that had an area less than 100 sq m were provided connection without seeking ownership documents and homes with a built up area below 1,500 sq m were provided connections with the temporary numbers provided by their panchayats," the minister said.

The Kerala government also resorted to solar plants at places where cable-laying was a challenge. 1,600 houses in 22 colonies are solar plant powered. A total of Rs 174 crores have been spent on the total electrification project.

OneIndia News