Shedding light on Saubhagya: 

Shedding light on Saubhagya:

Context:

• The Government of India has launched the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, or Saubhagya Scheme.

What is Saubhagya scheme?

• The Saubhagya scheme was launched on September 25^th, 2017.
• The scheme will provide electricity connections to over 40 million families in rural and urban areas by December 2018.

What is the need for the scheme?

• Village electrification programme like Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana, launched in July 2015, realised that a large number of household is still remaining without access to electricity.
• Moreover, the scheme aims at ensuring the coverage of households as opposed to only villages.
• A village is declared to be electrified if 10% of the households are given electricity along with public places such as schools, panchayat office, health centres, dispensaries and community centres.

How this scheme will make a difference?

• The scheme will help to meet its global climate change commitments as electricity will substitute kerosene for lighting purposes.
• Easy access to electricity in turn will also help in improving education, health, connectivity with the multiplier effect of increased economic activities and job creation.

What is Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana?

• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana is a Government of India scheme, launched on 25^th July 2015.
• The DDUGJY is one of the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Power.

Objectives:

• Ministry of Power, Government of India has launched Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana for rural areas having following objectives:
• To provide electrification to all villages,
• Feeder separation to ensure sufficient power to farmers and regular supply to other consumers,
• Improvement of Sub-transmission and distribution network to improve the quality and reliability of the supply and
• Metering to reduce the losses.

The power sector of India: a quick glance:

• India’s ranks third globally in terms of electricity production.
• Sources of power generation in India range from conventional sources such as coal, lignite, natural gas, oil, hydro and nuclear power to viable non-conventional sources such as wind, solar, and agricultural and domestic waste.
• Electricity comes under the concurrent list.

Problems of power sector in India:

• The deeply troubled power sector accounts for almost one-tenth of all bank loans in India.
• The power sector is also facing significant technological challenges as the cost of solar energy continues falling.
• Increasing power generation costs due to limited fuel availability, poor financial health of State Discoms, high AT&C losses have contributed in suppressed demand projections by State Discoms
• Power plants and utilities face major constraints and delays regarding the availability of land and obtaining the requisite environment and other clearances for the projects.
• Apart from these, there is a significant amount of shortage of manpower and machinery equipments.

Government initiatives:

• The Ministry of Power, Government of India, has taken various measures to achieve its aim of providing 24X7 affordable and environment friendly ‘Power for All’ by 2019.
• The Government of India has initiated 10-year tax exemption for solar energy projects order to achieve India’s ambitious renewable energy targets by the year 2022.
• The revised Tariff Policy was notified by Ministry of Power with a focus on ‘4 Es’ i.e. Electricity for all, Efficiency to ensure affordable tariffs, Environment for a sustainable future, Ease of doing business to attract investments and ensure financial viability.
• Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) for urban areas provides for:
• (a) strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution networks in urban areas;
• (b) metering of distribution transformers/feeders/consumers in urban areas; and
• (c) IT enablement of distribution sector and strengthening of distribution network.
• Operationalization of Power System Development Fund (PSDF) shall be utilized for the project proposed by distribution utilities for:
• (a) creating necessary transmission system of strategic importance;
• (b) installation of shunt capacitors etc. for improvement of voltage profile in the grid;
• (c) installation of standard and special protection schemes; and
• (d) Renovation and Modernisation of transmission and distribution systems for relieving congestion; etc.
• Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme has been launched for operational and financial turnaround of Discoms.