Kerala achieves full electrification, customers use SMS and WhatsApp for new connections

Kerala will soon be 'fully electrified'. According to the power minister of the state cabinet M.M. Mani, the chief minister of Kerala Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan, will make an official announcement on May 29, in Kozhikode.

However, this announcement is exclusive of 1000 families in the state, out of which there are 150 tribal families that live deep in the forests. They have been under the scrutiny of the forest department and have pending cases at courts with respect to the setting up of cables.

Speaking with The News Minute, the power minster M.M. Mani said,

The state has 1.25 crore KSEB consumers. Except 1000 families, it has given electricity connections to all. Among the 1000 families, are 150 tribal families who live deep inside the forests, who did not get connections due to pending cases. Of the 1.5 lakh beneficiaries, about 1.25 lakh belonged to the BPL category. They include 32,000 SC applicants and 17,500 tribal families. Most of them are so poor that they could not complete the wiring works in their house. So Kerala State Electricity Board Employees unions helped them to do those works.

In a chat with Times Of India, the minister also said,

The government granted power connections to 4,70,000 families, of which 1,50,000 were provided under the total electrification scheme. Consumers who use less than 20 unit of power each month will not be charged. Central norms stipulate that if two public utilities in a village are electrified and 10% of total houses in that village are given power connections, the village can be declared as completely electrified. In that respect, the state has become fully electrified.

The budget for this scheme of total electrification was Rs 174 crore out of which Rs 37.34 crore was used from the MLAs' asset development funds. This process was achieved by the simple procedures of acquiring a connection. Customers were able to send SMS and even used WhatsApp to get fresh connections.

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