India's Modi Said Every Single Village Electrified, Investigation Proves Otherwise

A string of Indian reporters busted the tall claims made by the right-wing Indian government that they have managed to deliver electricity to all the villages in the country.

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On Sunday, Modi's government claimed it had delivered electricity all its villages 12 days ahead of a deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which could give the ruling party a boost ahead of a general election in 2019.

Prime Minister Modi tweeted, "28th April 2018 will be remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India. Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever! I am delighted that every single village of India now has access to electricity."  

Per government figures, all of India’s 597,464 census villages have now been connected to electricity. When Modi took office in 2014, there were some 18,452 villages without electricity.

But an investigation led by the New Delhi-based magazine, India Today journalists found out some of the remote villages continued to be submerged in darkness.  

The reporters visited several parts of north-western, eastern and central India in the states of Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh to verify Narendra Modi's claim that nearly 18,000 villages now have electricity.

The reporters found out that some of the Dalit-dominated villages were not powered. Dalits are one of the most marginalized communities in India.

"On the banks of River Narmada, there are as much as five villages that are Dalit dominated. They don't know what electricity is all about." Alirajpur, where India Today correspondent visited is one among the five.

"Ghuraiya Hera, Hathiyakhar, Kehri ka Nagla, Rajghat, Haripura, Gole ka Pura, Shankar Pura, Thakur Pura - citizens of these villages have no clue how it feels to be sitting under a fan on a hot summer day. Villagers allege, they took the initiative to petition authorities, follow up files for days but nothing came out. Hardly ever any collector or Superintendent of Police comes to these villages," India Today's report noted.   

Jagdish Prasad, a resident of one of the villages told the India Today, "Forget electricity, we don't have a proper road or decent drinking water."  

Some people, also took to Twitter saying their villages were yet to be electrified despite the government’s claim.

“No. Not every village yet,” said Twitter user Dilip Gupta, identifying his village in a district of Uttar Pradesh in the north. “Over the course of years my native place has been expecting electricity every year, but it hasn’t arrived yet," Reuters reported.

The report provides sufficient evidence to debunk the claims made by the Indian government that it was able to "successfully" electrify all the villages in 70 years post independence.