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Saubhagya (Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana)
Claim
Partly accurate
Delivery
Partly delivered
On connections, the claim is broadly right — SAUBHAGYA and DDUGJY together electrified 2.86 crore households by the scheme's closure in March 2022. On 24×7 supply, the CAG's performance audit, tabled in December 2025, is where the claim overreaches: in the audit's own beneficiary survey, 27 per cent of respondents across 11 states reported less than 12 hours of power a day. The audit also records that even the earlier all-villages milestone rested on a definition counting a village electrified at 10 per cent of households, and that 1,092 villages in Jammu and Kashmir were still only partially electrified at closure.
“We had made a commitment to provide 24x7 electricity to all and the country has substantially attained the goal… almost all remaining households have been provided with an electricity connection… India can now claim that quantum of or access to electricity is no longer an issue.”Audit period: 1 Apr 2014 — 31 Dec 2023
A village counted as electrified once 10 per cent of its households had power, so village electrification did not mean household electrification; on the states' own data 4.04 crore rural households — 22.52 per cent — were un-electrified in October 2017, six months before the all-villages announcement. At scheme closure in 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. In the audit's beneficiary survey, 27 per cent of respondents across 11 states reported less than 12 hours of supply a day. The Ministry of Power could not provide data on households unwilling to take a connection because it had not maintained any. 2.86 crore households were electrified under the two schemes by closure.
Audit period
2.86 crore households electrified under SAUBHAGYA and DDUGJY by scheme closure
The audit covers 2014-15 to December 2023. Distribution reform and supply-hour improvement after that date are outside its scope.
Performance Audit on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana / Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA)
The 2019 Sankalp Patra treats electricity as a finished job. "We had made a commitment to provide 24x7 electricity to all and the country has substantially attained the goal," it says, and adds that "almost all remaining households have been provided with an electricity connection" and that "India can now claim that quantum of or access to electricity is no longer an issue."
That is two claims stacked on each other: connections, and supply. They deserve separate answers.
On connections, the claim is largely sound. SAUBHAGYA, launched October 2017, existed precisely to reach the households that village-level electrification had missed, and the CAG's performance audit of it and DDUGJY — tabled on 18 December 2025 — records 2.86 crore households electrified under the two schemes together by the time they closed in March 2022. That is an enormous programme delivered in under five years, and the manifesto was entitled to claim it.
On supply, the audit contradicts the claim directly, using its own fieldwork rather than departmental data. In its beneficiary survey, "27 per cent of respondents in 11 states reported less than 12 hours of power supply a day." A household with a meter and six hours of electricity has access in the administrative sense and not in any other. "24x7 electricity to all… substantially attained" cannot survive that finding.
The audit also puts the earlier milestone the manifesto leans on into context. The announcement of 28 April 2018 that every inhabited census village was electrified rested on a definition: "the village was considered electrified even with electrification of 10 per cent households as per the then adopted definition." On the states' own numbers, "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" — six months before the announcement.
And even against that definition, the record was not complete when the schemes closed. 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."
One gap in the record is worth noting because it bears on how the remaining un-electrified households are explained. Asked for data on households that were offered a connection and declined, the Ministry of Power could not supply it — it had not maintained any.
Connections were delivered at scale, which is why this verdict is partly accurate rather than not supported. The claim that access to electricity "is no longer an issue" is the part the audited record does not support.
BJP Sankalp Patra 2019 — Lok Sabha election manifesto
“Through this Sankalp Patra, you would get a glimpse of the challenges of the yesteryears, the indomitable efforts made by 130 crore Indians to overcome those challenges and our collective vision for the future… There are two commitments that I am extremely passionate about — doubling of farmer income and housing for all, by the year 2022.”
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.”