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Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi have his facts wrong when he claimed during his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort that Nagla Fatela, a tiny village in Uttar Pradesh, had finally been electrified, seven decades after independence?
On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while elucidating his government’s achievements -- especially electrification of villages across India -- claimed: “Brothers and Sisters, you will be surprised to know that at merely three hours journey from Delhi, there is a village called Nagla Fatela in Hathras region. But it took 70 years for electricity to reach there. 70 years, my brothers and Sisters! And therefore, I am introducing you to the work culture that we are following.”
However, according to a report in the Indian Express, many of the villagers in this hamlet in Mahamaya Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh have been living without electricity.
The village has about 600 homes -- 450 without power. The 150-odd homes that do get electricity rely on illegal ‘katia’ connections: they have connected their homes to a transformer meant to run 22 tubewells, and, in return, pay Rs 395 for two months to the Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, village pradhan Yogesh Kumar told the daily.
A day after after the prime minister made his assertion, the power ministry issued a statement. It said:
‘Electrification of said village was proposed by the Uttar Pradesh Government under 12th plan of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana and the Detailed Project Report for this purpose was submitted through State Level Steering committee, headed by chief secretary of the state on November 13, 2013. For this village, the DPR proposed connections to all households including creation of infrastructure one transformer of 63kVA, four transformers of 25kVA, HT 1.57 km, LT 1.54 km (three phase) and LT 0.62 km (single phase).’
‘The DPR was sanctioned by Government of India on 20.12.2013 and sanction letter was released by Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) on January 6, 2014.’
‘The DISCOM (DVVNL Agra) confirmed on February 26, 2015 that village Nagla Fatela is still un-electrified.’
‘DVVNL Agra, reported in October 2015 that infrastructure work for electrification of the village Nagla Fatela has been completed and the village has been electrified. Accordingly the village has been shown as electrified in the GARV App by REC.’
However, residents of Nagla Hatela have a different story to narrate.
"Perhaps, the Prime Minister hasn’t been made aware of the condition of our village," Ullanoor Usmani, a resident told the Indian Express.
“It’s true that the government made arrangements for electrification of our village under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana. We got poles, wires and meters but power supply remains a distant dream for us,” said pradhan Kumar.
Photos shared by the Prime Minister’s Office showing villagers watching TV on Independence Day also surprised locals. “These pictures are not of our village. The one with balloons seems to be of Nagla Sindhi, another village in Hathras which was electrified under a similar scheme,” said Devendra Singh, former pradhan of Nagla Fatela.