April 28 was more than just an average Saturday as Manipur’s Leisang village, in the Senapati district, gained access to off-grid electricity. This makes all of India’s 597,464 census villages officially electrified.

In his Independence day speech of 2015, Prime Minister Modi made a promise to electrify all the villages of India within 1000 days. He took to Twitter to share the news that the government has fulfilled the commitment that will transform life for millions of rural Indians.

A historic landmark in the journey of development for our country, this was achieved through the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGY) scheme under the state-run Rural Electrification Corporation (REC).

DDUGJY aims to provide round the clock power to all the rural households and agricultural consumers by setting up microgrid and off-grid distribution network. The scheme also aims to improve the nation’s per capita income, which is regarded one of the lowest in the world.

However, as The Wire reports, this does not mean that everyone has power. A village is considered electrified when 10% of households have power along with public spaces and institutions like schools, Panchayat office, health centres and dispensaries. Complete household electrification is now the last frontier of the scheme. It also looks forward to providing electrical connections to more than 40 million families in rural as well as urban areas by March 2019 under the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana. This scheme aims to reduce the import and use of fossil fuels instead boost under-utilised power plants to meet commitments made with regard to climate change.

Click here to read the complete report by Live Mint.