Kolkata: West Bengal has achieved 99.9 per cent rural household electrification with Darjeeling district getting completely electrified, a senior official of the state Power department said on Saturday. With two remote villages Gorkhay and Samanden on the fringes of Singalila National Park getting connected to power, another 20,000 connections have to be achieved by the state to attain 100 percent electrification, the official said.
“We have now little more than two crore power connections in the state and we are now left with about 20,000 connections to achieve 100 per cent household electrification,” the official said .
“However, 100 percent electrification will continue to be a dynamic number as new households are being added on a daily basis,” he said.
The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) had chipped in funds to electrify the villages that could not be brought under the ambit of the central scheme. The project cost for the two villages was Rs 1.1 crore.
Of the 37,960 villages in the state, Rural Electrification (RE) Department of West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL) has already electrified all the 37,960 villages.
In addition to that service connections have been provided to rural households. Electricity to 38,47,996 rural BPL/APL households has been provided under different completed rural electrification schemes, the official added.
