Residents of Nagla Fatela watch Prime Minister Modi's address live on television
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made development and good governance the mainstays of his third Independence Day speech today, focusing not only on the 'speed of work but rather the actual experience of progress.'
To drive home his mantra of 'reform, perform and transform' for good governance Prime Minister Modi spoke about how the government's thrust on rural electrification was impacting lives.
"Out of 18,000 villages, more than 10,000 villages have been electrified. The village of Nagla Fatela is only three hours from Delhi, but it took more than 70 years for it to get electricity. I have been told they are with us, watching this celebration of Independence Day."
On August 15 last year, the Prime Minister had promised electricity to villagers "deprived of rays of development" claiming that his government would finish the job in 1000 days since the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years."
Today Nagela Fatela is one of the 10,045 villages that have provided electricity under the Prime Minister's rural electrification drive. According to the Ministry of Power complete electrification of 18,475 villages will be completed by May 2017.
In
May this year, NDTV had reported how access to electricity had transformed the lives of residents in Anandpur, a village neighbouring Nagla Fatela.
India's per-capita electricity consumption is barely one-third of the global average. According to government reports more than 300 million Indians didn't have access to electricity.