Patna: Union minister of state (independent charge) for power and new & renewable energy Raj Kumar Singh on Tuesday expressed satisfaction over the works being done by power companies in Bihar to electrify households in 635 villages, which are predominantly inhabited by SC/ST communities.

This work is being done under the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan.

Officials from the state power companies made a PowerPoint presentation during the meeting in which all the points related to household electrification under the Abhiyan were explained.

Launched on April 14, the Abhiyan aims to saturate all the households in 21,058 identified villages across the country with benefits of seven flagship schemes of the Centre, including household electrification.

The six other schemes are related to providing free LPG cylinders, giving LED lamps, opening bank accounts, providing life insurance cover, providing accident insurance policy and immunisation of all the children in need for it.

In Bihar the Abhiyan has been launched in 635 such villages, which are predominantly inhabited by people from SC/ST communities.

During the meeting the power company officials explained to the minister that a total of around 28,000 households had to be electrified between April 14 and May 5 in the identified villages and power connection had already been provided to 11,500 households and the remaining ones would get power connection latest by May 1.

"The Union minister was very satisfied with the progress in Bihar and expressed hope that officials in Bihar would complete the work well before the cut-off date of May 5," one of the rural electrification corporation officials, who was present in the meeting, told The Telegraph.

During the meeting the Union minister also came up with a few suggestions for further improvement in the power sector in Bihar and laid emphasis on installing prepaid meters to weed out the billing-related problems and also to cut down on the aggregate transmission and commercial losses, said the REC official.

Apart from Singh, the state energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav, rural electrification corporation CMD P.V. Ramesh, and joint secretary in the ministry of power A.K. Verma and Bihar state power holding company limited chairman Pratyaya Amrit also took part in the review meeting which lasted for around 90 minutes.

After attending the review meeting in Patna, Singh flew to Ranchi where he would hold a similar meeting with Jharkhand officials and on Wednesday he is scheduled to hold the review meeting in Lucknow to assess the progress made in household connections in Uttar Pradesh.