'Na Bijli Aayegi...' — How A Stubborn CM And An IAS Brought Electricity To Bihar's Hinterlands

In the middle of July 2025, Bihar Government announced its decision to provide free electricity subject to an upper limit of 125 units.

While the decision had its fair share of criticism and applause, Uttar Pradesh Power Minister Arvind Kumar (AK) Sharma had a unique take on it. When quizzed about the feasibility of its replication in UP, he said, "Electricity is free in Bihar but it will be free only when it will be supplied... na bijli ayegi na bill ayega... free ho gayi. Hum bijli de rhe hain."

The statement lacked serious comparative analysis and was not grounded in facts. At the same time, it is also true that Bihar's miraculous journey from being powered by lanterns towards its extinction is not a widely covered phenomenon.

The relentlessness of a stubborn chief minister, the planning and execution of an IAS and millions of hours put in by employees down the lower end of hierarchy whilst criss-crossing through the rough terrains, political brokers, and caste inequality has ensured that Bihar meets its peak power demand on a regular basis.

Lantern challenge before Nitish Kumar

When Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2001, it did not just take away 28,000 villages and over 80 per cent of revenue, but also the majority of installed capacity. After the bifurcation, Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) was left with only two power stations, namely Barauni Thermal Power Station and Muzaffarpur Thermal Power Station with the combined capacity of producing only 510 MW. 

The mismatch between demand and supply forced the state government to purchase 90 per cent of its power demand, which was already quite low, from central utilities.

Further exacerbating the problem was the inefficiency of BSEB in distribution of power. For Financial Year 2005 (FY), Planning Commission estimated that BSEB's Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses were well above 74 per cent. However, the state government put this figure at 59 per cent, citing variation in reporting methods.

Even the 59 per cent figure is an acknowledgement of the huge problem. Various independent economic analyses clearly state that any power corporation with over 15 per cent of AT&C loss becomes commercially non-viable. The standard for developed countries is less than six per cent whilst in underdeveloped economies, 15 per cent is a healthy figure.

In practical terms, AT&C loss of 59 per cent means that more than half of all electricity supplied fails to generate billable, collectible revenue. Put simply, if the discoms buy 100 units from a generator, they must still pay for all 100, but can only realistically collect the cost for about 41 units. The result is crushing debt, inability to invest in infrastructure, and an inevitable cycle of service deterioration and customer dissatisfaction.

The trickier part for anyone wishing to solve this crisis, Nitish Kumar in this case, was the 'WHY' side of this problem.

The first major problem was the outdated network, which hadn't seen an overhaul in decades. Old lines coupled with crowded substations and undersized transformers caused technical inefficiencies in patchy feeder networks. The maintenance, which was deferred for years, only contributed more to physical losses.

The third problem was simply operational. BSEB and government lacked in-depth research tools which hindered their operation. For instance, the organisation could not accurately time the peak demand for buying power, which significantly raised costs of purchasing. Multiple reports have shown that Bihar's power purchase efficiency score has been one of the worst in India.

Additionally, a few other issues like subsidy payment burdens, political interference in keeping prices low and hindrance in adopting anti-theft measures only exacerbated the problem to the extent that at the end of Financial year 2005, the energy dues outstanding to BSEB was Rs 5,101 crores, a distressing figure for the organisation which took a loan of Rs 2,900 crore in the same year.

Even its capital city, Patna, would get less than 10 hours of electricity supply, whilst villages were divided into three categories. One was that of villages which did not have de facto electricity connection due to changing definitions of electrified villages. Hundreds of villages were electrified, de-electrified and re-electrified in different years.

The second category was that of those villages which used to get two to three hours of regular electricity. In the third category, villages had connections, but electricity remained a daylight dream for days, months, weeks and even years.

The low demand figure quoted above is not reflective of demand, but is in fact a commentary on poor expectations of the people of the state. In its tariff order published on 29 November 2006, Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) beautifully puts the scenario as "The power availability is not adequate to meet the present demand and therefore the demand is restricted to the availability of power."

For Nitish Kumar, bringing 'light of development' was a key promise. In political parlance, it is also an attack on Lantern, the electoral symbol of rival Rashtriya Janta Dal, whose rule is often cited as the dark age in Bihar during which kerosene oil was the main source of lantern light.

The Renaissance

The resurgence could begin with as simple a step as replacing 30,000 burnt and unserviceable transformers, but poor road and transport infrastructure and road connectivity to over 14,000 electrified villages (out of 39,073) was a big hurdle. So, the government first decided to work on core issues whilst Pratyay Amrit, current chief secretary of the state and one of Nitish Kumar's favourite bureaucrats, took on the onus of road connectivity.

In hindsight, it may look like a conservative approach, but for a state which could produce only 10 per cent of an abysmally low generation capacity of 510MW and having only 5000 circuit kilometres of inefficient transmission lines, maximising the utilisation of existing strength becomes the first step.

The first priority was to ramp up the transmission infrastructure and make it fit for evacuating more power. The state launched Sub-Transmission Scheme Phase-2, Part-I in 2006, originally budgeted at ₹629 crore, later revised to ₹1,005 crore, to upgrade lines and grid substations under POWERGRID Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL).

As documented by BERC, the transmission lines witnessed a 30 per cent spike in seven years, reaching 6,400 circuit km of more efficient infrastructure. The improved evacuation capacity helped Bihar handle more power through the grid, preparing it for better supply. Similar progress was made on the distribution front as well.

The state also joined the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), aimed at providing electricity to villages. The contemporary reports indicate that by September 2012, more than 24,000 villages had been declared electrified.

With the expansion of infrastructure and electrification, per capita consumption rose from 70 units in 2005 to 120 units in 2012. The demand climbed from the low hundreds in 2005 to a range of 1,100 to 1,751 MW (peak demand) by 2012. To meet the increasing demand, the state government entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with NTPC on 4 November 2010, a significant step away from ad hoc purchases. It secured 960 MW of power for the state.

Describing his achievement in later years, Kumar once said "It (per capita consumption) rose to 120 units in 2012 when, addressing the Independence Day function, I promised people I would not seek votes if the power scenario did not better. I asked for votes in the 2014 general election only when the power sector reported improvement."

However, the progress was not satisfactory, especially in the wake of it being one of the most sought after reforms by the Kumar government.

The need for rejig in state electricity board

For instance, even after massive uptick in rural road construction, unrepaired transformers remained a challenge. In 2009, Kumar instructed the then BSEB Chairman Swapan Mukherjee to make his numbers public for complaints related to burnt transformers. However, he and the department neither had financial nor had time bandwidth to work on it.

Even in 2013, more than 9,000 transformers were unattended after they burned.

Another big problem was that of RGGVY. Its success was only cosmetic, getting poles to villages and bare minimum power availability, refuted by multiple ground reports by various agencies. The story of Afaur village in Saran district, which was under darkness for 17 long years, was highlighted as one of the faces of failure of RGGVY.

The third big problem was inefficiency in BSEB due to excessive workload handed over to non-specialised individuals. It was purely a function of a large organisation failing to meet the changing needs of the state. A contemporary performance audit by CAG shed some light on it.

In its concluding remark on BSEB, it held:

By 2012, flat rate tariff had also come under intense criticism. BERC's annual report for FY 2012 and 2013 observes "Around ten lakh consumers of different categories in BSEB were un-metered as on Oct. 2012. They are billed on flat rate tariff, thereby provoking the user to misuse electricity without any accounting. Nearly 40% of 33 KV & 11 KV feeders are un-metered. Distribution transformer (DT) wise metering is not a prevalent practice in erstwhile Board or its reorganised successor companies."

Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the consultant deployed by the government, had provided the answer to these woes. It had asked the state government to unbundle BSEB, but as it turned out, the government approved it without proper preparation, which further delayed the problem by the end of 2012, by which time it became a compulsory measurement and exacted significant cost on the exchequer.

In compliance with Electricity Act, 2003, BSEB was restructured into five companies with Bihar State Power Company Limited (BSPCL) as the holding company. Under the new 'Bihar State Electricity Reforms Transfer Scheme 2012', companies named Bihar State Power Transmission Company Limited (BSPTCL) would handle transmission infrastructure and grid operations, Bihar State Power Generation Company Limited (BSPGCL) would be responsible for state-owned generation, North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (NBPDCL) would be handling distribution in the northern region and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) took over the distribution of the southern region.

Reports and audits in successive years pointed towards rapid improvement in power efficiency of the state. The scale of success can be understood from these four statistics:

• Between 2012 and 2017, the transmission network in the state almost doubled from 6,400 circuit km to 12,230 circuit km with 126 grid substations built at CAGR of nine per cent.

These headline figures hid one critical facet of demand side constraint, the rural electricity in the state. Apparently, it remained in dire straits.

Rural Electrification: The Elephant In The Room

While the numbers on rural electrification always told a rosy story, Bihar's complicated socio-economic dynamics pose a different challenge altogether, which later turned out to be a pan-India phenomenon.

In 2014, when Pratyay Amrit took charge as energy secretary after his successful stint with Bihar State Road Development Corporation Limited, 3,000 revenue villages (out of 39,073) of Bihar were still unelectrified. Practically, it means that these villages did not have transmission and distribution lines and public places like schools, panchayat offices, health centres, dispensaries and community centres had to operate on lanterns or other sources of light.

Another problem was that of coverage to the proverbial last person of the country/state/district/city/town/village. The term 'electrified village' for a layperson implies that transmission and distribution wires and poles are present outside the last house of village on either end. That was also not the case as the state was just getting on its feet.

But for Nitish Kumar, this was not acceptable. On 15 November, 2016, Kumar launched Har Ghar Bijli Yojana for universal electricity coverage. The onus of executing this was given to Amrit, who by then was busy expanding headline infrastructure and fixing burnt transformers.

After taking charge as energy secretary in June 2014, his team changed 40,000 transformers within 180 days, all thanks to road infrastructure accelerated during his stint in the transport sector. The change in grid infrastructure pointed above is also attributed to his accelerated pace of reforms.

This step was essential, not just for contractors, but also for the common public who were unwilling to participate in the programme. "The quick payment actually worked as a messenger since contractors now passed on the message to villagers that government is serious about providing them electricity," said Amritesh, a banker, who used to be a community volunteer in the project.

The second major reform in the execution was preparing a separate team of engineers for the project. "When we started the work, we noticed executive engineers in a dual role, supply and projects. Since the same executive engineers cannot look after the works of supply and projects, so I prepared a new team of independent executive engineers for projects, who were tasked to look after only rural electrification works. Similarly, independent junior engineers were also assigned for supply work. It was a major reform in the sector, which finally resulted in the completion of the work without any hassle," said Amrit, in an interview with Millennium Post.

Amrit, who is also a 2011 awardee of Prime Minister's Excellence in Public Administration, brought transparency by monitoring developments through multiple apps, which local public representatives also had access to. Hardcore watchers of local administrative affairs actually remained in awe of the support which MLAs provided.

Two factors played their respective roles in galvanising such support. Firstly, it was a decade-long poll promise of Kumar, which he often spoke about and MLAs could not dare to lower their guards. Secondly, Amrit's image of a go-getter was also crucial. He himself used to give long representations to them in various meetings headed by him.

Bihar's terrains and seasons tested the department. The riverine areas of the state required specialised planning since transportation of materials and erection of towers was not possible in rains. These areas were taken on priority and plans were executed much before the first rain arrived.

Talking about the challenges in mountainous regions, Amrit said, "The second terrain which posed a huge challenge was Kaimur forest, Rohtas forest, hilly terrain and districts like Bettiah bordering Nepal, inhabited by Tharus. The problem we faced was that because of the forests, they will not allow these lines and poles and it is very difficult to get permission from the forest department. So we hit upon this idea of off-grid solutions. So, first we attacked those villages where it was relatively easy to work and then in the last leg, we entered into this area where we knew that challenges are there."

All this had to be done keeping in mind the problem of labour shortage due to migration, rains and long festive season running up to Chhath. Amrit and his team finished the electrification project on 27 December 2017, against the stipulated target of 31 December, 2017.

Just when the team took a breather, CM Kumar quizzed him about the status of Tolas. Tolas are parts of the villages where people from a particular community tend to live. It is generally formed on the basis of castes or backwardness. Tolas are the last landmarks of administrative addresses in Bihar villages.

The next few months were spent on correcting minor faults and fixing small unfixed problems. By October 25, 2018, Kumar's vision came to reality as the state achieved its target within two years. In this time period, the state added 1.39 crore more connections to its kitty with significant contribution from Centre's Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya) scheme, believed by many as a replication of Bihar government's Har Ghar Bijli scheme.

By the next year, the average supply of electricity jumped to 18 hours per day, which rose to 22-24 hours in subsequent years. At peak power demand of 8,752 MW in 2025, the state doesn't flinch in ensuring the availability. 

Metrics after metrics on key parameters like AT&C losses, per capita consumption, transmission lines, substations, installed power, metered connections, smart metres, profitability and revenue document how Bihar has changed its fortune on electricity. The state once considered a beacon of darkness has a bright presence on night light atlas.

A word of caution

The revival story is more than just numbers. It's a story of grit and determination of two individuals who went against all odds to finish their target in a state which had accepted lethargy and darkness as a curse on itself. All it took was one shining light on the administrative horizon who had the chief minister's political will with him. As the phrase goes 'Institutional mechanism backed by political will' made this miracle a reality.

Whilst the author finished writing this, complaints of power cuts in Bihar have started to emerge. This is the new problem, which can be directly traced back to the announcement of free electricity.

Will the state's power units be able to sustain in the wake of freebie onslaught? Time has the answer. All one hopes is that the UP Power Minister is not proved right in the long term.

Bihar seems to have lowered its guard at the wrong time though.