Prime Minister Modi Reviews Infrastructure Progress. Here Are Some Numbers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today (9 May) reviewed progress of key infrastructure sectors including petroleum and natural gas, power, renewable energy and housing.

The review meeting, held yesterday, was attended by top officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, NITI Aayog and all infrastructure ministries of the central government.

Here’s a brief summary of the review, in numbers:

- The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana – whose objective is to provide five crore LPG connections to BPL families with monetary support per connection for three years – has benefited 1.98 crore BPL households so far.

The contribution of gas to the primary energy mix has risen to 8 per cent. Eighty-one cities are being covered under City Gas Distribution networks.

- The rural electrification programme is proceeding swiftly, with over 13,000 villages electrified of a total of 18,452, and is on track for completion within the targeted 1,000 days.

Over 22 lakh rural BPL households were electrified in 2016-17, and over 40 crore LED bulbs were distributed in the same period.

The total inter-regional transmission capacity has been significantly enhanced, with 41 GW transmission capacity being added from May 2014 to April 2017.

- The total renewable generation capacity has crossed 57 GW, with a 24.5 per cent increase registered in the last fiscal year. The capacity addition in solar energy in FY17 was the highest ever, at 81 per cent. Solar and wind tariffs have now achieved grid parity, with rates well below Rs 4 per kWh.

In addition, the Prime Minister called for establishment of model solar cities, where solar energy alone would power areas entirely.

He asked for manufacturing of solar equipment to be given priority – to drive employment generation and derive maximum benefit from the renewable energy drive.

The Prime Minister also called for a focused approach on the 100 worst-performing districts with respect to various infrastructure schemes. He asked for future reviews to focus on problems at the district-level so that the progress of poorly performing districts can be better monitored.

With Inputs From ANI.