Palakkad is India's 1st fully electrified district

Palakkad on Tuesday became the first fully electrified district of the country.

Announcing this, Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said, the government was working on a target of bringing electricity to all villages in the next two years.

He recalled that when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power in 2004, 1.17 lakh villages in India did not have power and since then, around 68,000 villages have been electrified and others would be covered in the next two years.

"India would achieve self-reliance in producing power generation equipment in one-and-a-half years. The equipment and ancillaries like turbines were now mostly being produced by public sector Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. More companies had entered the sector in recent times," he said.

The minister noted that the government was taking effective measures to bring down transmission losses.

"The achievement of Kerala in this regard has been commendable as transmission loss of the state grid stands at 18.7 per cent, against the national average of 37 per cent," he said. The total electrification campaign was taken up as a major programme by the LDF government after it came to power in 2006.

It was projected as an important an achievement like the record set by the state in securing cent per cent literacy and universal education. State Electricity Minister A K Balan, said work totalling Rs 545 crore (Rs 5.45 billion) had been taken up for creating or upgrading power infrastructure in the district in the last four years.

"Taking electricity to every nook and corner of the sprawling agrarian district, parts of which are hilly terrain with tribal population was an ambitious task," he said.

The minister said the Palakkad model would be extended to other parts of Kerala to achieve the goal of total electrification within a few years. State opposition leader Oommen Chandy was among those present on the occasion.