PM Modi launches 'Saubhagya' yojna for 24X7 electricity: All you need to know

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday unveiled a new flagship programme of 'Saubhagya - Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana' to energise last mile power delivery.

The Rs 16,320-crore scheme aims at providing 'last mile electricity connectivity to all rural and urban households'.

"New India will not only have power in all villages but in every home," said PM Modi while the announcing the scheme. "We have decided the burden for this will not be borne by the poor. The poor used to have to go around in circles trying to get power, the government will now go to their homes to give them electricity," he added.

Four crore homes in the country still don't have power connections, which means that of the 25 crore homes in India, "25 percent people are without power, living in 18th century," he added.

The announcement, made at the headquarters of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, will reinforce the ruling party's electricity-for-all target, which was recently advanced from 2019 to 2018.

Here are the key features of the scheme

• Access to electricity to all willing households

• Substitution to keroseane

• Improvement in educational services

• Improvement in communications

• Improvement in public health

• Improvement in public safety

• Increased job opportunities.

• Better quality of life, especially for women, in daily chores

Modi also inaugurated Deendayal Urja Bhawan in the national capital on the occasion of birth centenary celebration of RSS ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)