UP has a massive 1 crore 31 lakh homes which do not have electricity.
When electricity finally arrived four months ago in the Kachan village in Sonbhadra, the second largest district of Uttar Pradesh, 35-year-old Mumtaz Hussain bought a freezer and started a soft drink shop.
"I don't earn too much but yes, I do manage somehow. I do wish the light would stay longer. Currently, the supply is very erratic," says Hussain, who used to do odd jobs back in the "dark ages".
The irony of Sonbhadra's darkness is hard to miss.
The district has as many as eight big power plants that supply electricity to different parts of the country. It is in a region that is called India's thermal power hub. Yet, less than a third of the homes in villages across the district have been electrified since Independence. Connecting the rest to power before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's December 31 deadline is a big challenge.
Statistics for the entire state are equally overwhelming. UP has a massive 1 crore 31 lakh homes which do not have electricity. The state accounts for nearly 42 per cent of the 3.13 crore homes without electricity across in country.
Many villagers just want a cold glass of water after getting electricity
In Sonbhadra's Nagraj village, most early settlers were those displaced decades ago to make way for the Rihand dam, India's largest by volume. Many big thermal power plants are located in Rihand's catchment area, but Nagraj has never seen electricity.
"It is not anyone's fault. The schemes till now that were in place, the standards that were enforced, we carried out electrification accordingly. In those schemes it was not possible to go to every home in every village unit. Now a new scheme has been launched and we are committed to do it. I am confident that by December we will send electricity to every home," said Subhash Yadav, the engineer in charge of making the electricity deadline.
Around 600 km away in Hardoi district - which is closer to Lucknow - at 61-year-old Kadhle's home on the periphery of the Puran Khera village, a brand new electricity meter was installed for free by the government before Holi and electricity was promised within a week to everyone in the village.
The delay has upset the family, but they are optimistic. Two of Kadhle's sons work in a factory in Ludhiana. The youngest, Ashok, says his priorities are clear once electricity actually comes in. "I have already called my brother and asked him to get a TV. I called him two days ago, he works in Ludhiana. He told me let electricity actually come first and then we will think about it," says Ashok, laughing out loud.
The government needs to electrify over two lakh forty thousand homes in eight months to meet the PM's deadline - that's about 1,000 homes per day.
UP government has to electrify 2.4 lakh homes in eight months
Watching with a lot of interest are villagers in Hardoi's Teuna, where electric polices and wires came up in 2005, but no power has come in a full 13 years later. "I also want to have water from a fridge. I go to some other villages and their people drink cold water. I also want that. I can't even have a cold drink at my home," says a villager Amit Gupta, to a lot of laughter around him.
Yogi Adityanath's government says it is organizing free power camps in each district to hand out minimal charge power connections, and that district wise electrification performance is being monitored on a daily basis. "You see we are committed to not only doing this but also to do it before time. We are taking all suitable steps and you will see the results," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, UP's deputy chief minister.