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Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)
Claim
Lacks context
True as defined, and the definition is the story. A village counted as electrified once 10 per cent of its households had power, so "every village electrified" did not mean every home had electricity: on the states' own data, 4.04 crore rural households — 22.52 per cent — had none in October 2017, which is why the government launched SAUBHAGYA that same month. The CAG's performance audit, tabled in December 2025, records both the announcement and the definition side by side.
“100 per cent village electrification achieved — all 18,452 remaining un-electrified villages stood electrified as on 28 April 2018.”Audit period: 1 Apr 2014 — 31 Dec 2023
The audit records that all 18,452 un-electrified census villages were announced electrified on 28 April 2018 — and that a village was considered electrified once 10 per cent of its households had electricity. On data provided by the states, 4.04 crore rural households (22.52 per cent) were still un-electrified in October 2017. Even by that definition the record was incomplete: at scheme closure in March 2022, 1,092 villages in Jammu and Kashmir were partially electrified and public places in 2,722 villages of Rajasthan and Tripura were yet to be electrified. In the audit's own beneficiary survey, 27 per cent of respondents in 11 states reported less than 12 hours of power supply a day.
Audit period
2.86 crore households electrified under SAUBHAGYA/DDUGJY by scheme closure
The households the village-level definition left out were electrified under SAUBHAGYA, launched October 2017 and closed 31 March 2022.
Performance Audit on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana / Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA)
On 28 April 2018, the government announced that every inhabited census village in India had electricity — the last of 18,452 villages identified in August 2015, connected "in a record time of 987 days". The Ministry of Power's Year End Review for 2018 records it as "100 per cent village electrification achieved". The announcement was real, widely reported, and — under the definition in force — accurate.
The definition is what this fact-check is about. Since before this government's tenure, a village has counted as electrified once basic infrastructure reached it and 10 per cent of its households — along with public places such as schools and panchayat offices — had a connection. The CAG's performance audit of DDUGJY and SAUBHAGYA (Report No. 17 of 2025, tabled 18 December 2025) states this plainly: "Village electrification, however, did not result in electrification of all the households, as the village was considered electrified even with electrification of 10 per cent households as per the then adopted definition."
The same page carries the scale of what the definition left out. On data the states themselves provided, 13.90 crore of 17.94 crore rural households had electricity in October 2017 — leaving 4.04 crore households, 22.52 per cent, without it, six months before the all-villages announcement. The government's own actions acknowledged this: SAUBHAGYA, launched in October 2017, existed precisely to connect the households that village-level electrification had not reached. By the scheme's closure on 31 March 2022, the audit records, 2.86 crore households had been electrified under SAUBHAGYA and DDUGJY together.
Even measured against its own definition, the record was not complete. The audit "noticed that till closure of the scheme (March 2022), 1,092 villages in Jammu and Kashmir (including Ladakh) were partially electrified and public places in 2,722 villages of Rajasthan and Tripura were yet to be electrified" — four years after the announcement, roughly a fifth of the 18,452 villages had not fully met the test the announcement rested on.
Quality of supply is a separate question from connection, and the audit measured that too: in its beneficiary survey, 27 per cent of respondents across 11 states reported less than 12 hours of power a day. And on one question the record simply stops — the Ministry of Power told the audit it could not provide data on households unwilling to take a connection, because it had not maintained any.
None of this makes the 28 April 2018 announcement false. Every one of the 18,452 villages did meet the definition, and connecting them — many remote enough that the grid had never reached them — was a real achievement. But "every village has electricity" was heard by most people as "every home has electricity", and on the day it was announced, more than one in five rural households did not. The claim is accurate under its definition and incomplete without it — which is what our verdict, lacks context, means.
Year End Review 2018 — Ministry of Power
“Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGKY) 100 per cent village electrification achieved … Achievement under Saubhagya during January to November 2018: Number of households electrified – more than 2 Crore. Nation expected to achieve 100 % household electrification by 31st December, 2018.”
Performance Audit on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana / Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA)
“Village electrification, however, did not result in electrification of all the households, as the village was considered electrified even with electrification of 10 per cent households as per the then adopted definition. As per the data provided by the States as on 10 October 2017, 13.90 crore out of 17.94 crore rural households, were electrified and the remaining 4.04 crore households (22.52 per cent) were un-electrified.”