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The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on Wednesday said that his government would initiate measures to ensure that every house in every village of India would be provided with electricity in the next five years i.e. 2017. Addressing the nation on the occasion of the country's 65th Independence Day from the ramparts of the historic 17th century-built Red Fort, Dr. Singh said: "When the UPA Government came to power in 2004, we had promised that we would provide electricity to all villages. To fulfill this promise, we launched the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Scheme. More than one lakh new villages have been provided with electricity connections under this scheme and now almost all the villages in the country have been electrified." "Our next target is to provide electricity to each and every household in our country in the next 5 years and to also improve the supply of electricity," he added. India currently suffers from a major shortage of electricity generation capacity, even though it is the world's fourth largest energy consumer after United States , China and Russia . The International Energy Agency estimates India needs an investment of at least 135 billion dollars to provide universal access of electricity to its population. The International Energy Agency estimates India will add between 600 GW to 1200 GW of additional new power generation capacity before 2050. This added new capacity is equivalent to the 740 GW of total power generation capacity of European Union (EU-27) in 2005. The technologies and fuel sources India adopts, as it adds this electricity generation capacity, may make significant impact to global resource usage and environmental issues. India 's electricity sector is amongst the world's most active players in renewable energy utilization, especially wind energy. As of December 2011, India had an installed capacity of about 22.4 GW of renewal technologies-based electricity, exceeding the total installed electricity capacity in Austria by all technologies. Key implementation challenges for India's electricity sector include new project management and execution, ensuring availability of fuel quantities and qualities, lack of initiative to develop large coal and natural gas resources present in India, land acquisition, environmental clearances at state and central government level, and training of skilled manpower to prevent talent shortages for operating latest technology plants. Of the 1.4 billion people of the world who have no access to electricity in the world, India accounts for over 300 million. Some 800 million Indians use traditional fuels - fuelwood, agricultural waste and biomass cakes - for cooking and general heating needs. Burning of biomass and firewood will not stop, these reports claim, unless electricity or clean burning fuel and combustion technologies become reliably available and widely adopted in rural and urban India . The growth of electricity sector in India may help find a sustainable alternative to traditional fuel burning. During the year 2010-11, demand for electricity in India far outstripped availability, both in terms of base load energy and peak availability. Base load requirement was 861,591 (MU against availability of 788,355 MU, a 8.5 percent deficit. During peak loads, the demand was for 122 GW against availability of 110 GW, a 9.8 percent shortfall. In a May 2011 report, India 's Central Electricity Authority anticipated, for 2011-12 year, a base load energy deficit and peaking shortage to be 10.3 percent and 12.9 percent respectively. The peaking shortage would prevail in all regions of the country, varying from 5.9 percent in the North-Eastern region to 14.5 percent in the Southern Region. India also expects all regions to face energy shortage varying from 0.3 percent in the North-Eastern region to 11.0 percent in the Western region. India 's Central Electricity Authority expects a surplus output in some of the states of Northern India , those with predominantly hydropower capacity, but only during the monsoon months. In these states, shortage conditions would prevail during winter season. According to this report, the five states with largest power demand and availability, as of May 2011, were Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat . Last month, India was hit by grid failure over a period of two consecutive days. The blackout, one of the worst to hit India in a decade, highlighted the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become a regional economic power. It was suspected the country's northern and north-eastern grids crashed because it could no longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer. The grid was drawing power from neighbouring grids as well as getting hydroelectric power from of Bhutan . Investigations are on as to why grid failure occurred.

Every house in India will be provided electricity by 2017: PM