Sambalpur: The slow progress of rural electrification schemes is a matter of serious concern in this district. A target had been set to electrify 1,256 villages in the district under the Deen Dayal Upaddhyay Gramin Jyoti scheme, but only 556 villages were electrified by the end of the last fiscal, as per sources in the energy department.
Similarly, there was Rajiv Gandhi rural electrification scheme during the UPA as also Deen Dayal and Soubhagya schemes under the NDA rule, apart from the Biju Jyoti scheme of the state government. All these schemes are meant to electrify rural India.
But the pity is that there are still villages like Turibahal where the villagers keep complaining about lack of electricity link to their homes and habitations. Remote and undeveloped blocks like Redhakhol and Naktideul in the district are caught in a similar plight.
As per department sources, only six villages in Redhakhol block and one village in Nasktideul block were electrified so far, although a target had been fixed to electrify 205 villages in Redhakhol block and 182 villages in Naktideul block under the scheme in the last three years.
Rural electrification in the tribal dominated Kuchinda block is also not very encouraging. Only 41 villages were electrified so far out of the targeted 130 villages in the block.
The situation in other blocks of the district is as follows: 56 out of 132 villages in Bamra, 113 out of 228 villages in Jamankira, 94 out of 104 villages in Maneswar, 119 out of 122 villages in Jujumura, 49 out of 86 villages in Dhankauda, and all the 76 targeted villages in Rengali have been electrified under the scheme.
A target has been fixed to electrify all the power-deprived villages under the Soubhagya Scheme latest by next month, ie, May but it is unlikely that the target could be achieved so soon.
