India: electrification rate in rural areas

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Approximately 90 percent of villages in India were estimated to be electrified in 2019. Rural areas and country sides are also known as villages in India.

Rural electrification in India

While most urban households in India use electricity as a main source of lighting, only about half of the rural households had access to electricity in 2011. The efforts toward rural electrification began in the 1960s, with success in the recent years. One of the recent government projects launched in September 2017, the Saubhagya scheme or Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana aimed to provide electricity to all households in the country. Each household was provided with one LED light and a DC power plug including repair and maintenance of meter for five years.

Electricity generation in India

With various sources of power generation, most of the country’s electricity generation is from coal-based thermal power plants. The Vindhyachal thermal power station in Madhya Pradesh is the biggest thermal power plant and is owned by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), a state-owned enterprise.