Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar is likely to announce on May 4 that electrification work has been completed in all Bihar villages.

An event is expected to be organised in Patna to mark the achievement.

Bihar already carries the distinction of having electrified all its 39,073 revenue villages. Nitish announced it on December 27 last year too. However, keeping the ground realities of Bihar's villages in mind, the government didn't stop at the electrification of revenue villages and gave the power companies the target to electrify the hamlets too.

According to records available till April 27, electrification work was left in 378 of 1,06,249 identified hamlets.

"Going by the current speed of hamlet electrification work, we are confident of delivering electricity to all the hamlets by April 30," a senior official in the Bihar State Power Holding Company told The Telegraph, adding that May 4 had been fixed to formally announce the achievement so that the work could be cross-checked once before.

The North Bihar Power Distribution Company and South Bihar Power Distribution Company, which have been given the task of hamlet rural electrification work, started the project from January 7 this year. At that time, 22,094 hamlets were to be electrified.

By January-end, 3,793 such hamlets were electrified and 5,747 hamlets were added to the list in February. In March another 5,546 hamlets were electrified and by April 27, electrification work had been completed in another 6,630 hamlets.

"The hamlet electrification work was done in mission mode and the results are for everyone to see," said the holding company official. "The field personnel worked really well and the constant support from the headquarters helped in overcoming the hurdles in the way."

Sources said the power distribution companies' decision to seek feedback on the electrification work has helped bring power to those hamlets that had inadvertently been left out during the drive.

"So far we have received feedback from at least five hamlets and electrification work has been started at those places," said the official.

He added that the feedback mechanism would not be put to rest after the hamlet electrification work is formally completed, as the ultimate goal of the mission was to make power available to all.