We hope to light up 35 mn households by Dec: Power secy Ajay Kumar Bhalla

The Prime Minister has asked us to advance the target from March 2019 to December 2018

At a time when private power generators are under stress due to their debt woes, the government is pushing to get each rural household electrified under the Saubhagya scheme. In a free-wheeling interview on the achievement of 10 million milestone under the programme, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, secretary, power, spoke to Jyoti Mukul on various issues confronting the sector. Edited Excerpts:

How is Saubhagya progressing?

When we announced the Saubhagya scheme, we had an estimate of 40 million households which were to be electrified. Large number of them were in six states—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Assam and Jharkhand. When detailed