‘Vidyut sakhis' collect all-time high of Rs 169 crore in two months
Lucknow: Women engaged under the UP state rural livelihood mission (UPSRLM) are 'powering' their way to livelihood. Trained as 'vidyut sakhis', these women have managed to collect electricity bill payments of over Rs 169 crore from consumers in the first two months of the ongoing 2025-26 fiscal year — an all-time high since the inception of the programme in 2020.
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This is, in fact, double the amount collected in 2021-22 when vidyut sakhis collected Rs 87 crore in the entire financial year.
The 'Vidyut Sakhi' initiative empowers rural women by training them to collect electricity bill payments directly from consumers.
Rural development department data shows that between 2021-22 and 2024-25, more than Rs 2,000 crore was collected by vidyut sakhis. Data shows that the electricity bill payment collection almost doubled every financial year — from Rs 87 crore in 2021-22, it jumped to Rs 262 crore in 2022-23, to Rs 466 crore in 2023-24, and eventually to Rs 1,045 crore in 2024-25.
As many as 14,105 'vidyut sakhis' in UP together received a commission of over Rs 26 crore in the last five years. Of this, a commission of over Rs 13 crore was earned by them in 2024-25 alone. In rural areas, vidyut sakhis get a commission of Rs 20 per transaction on full payment by the consumer up to Rs 1,999 and 1% of the bill amount from Rs 2,000 to Rs 1,99,999.
A key milestone of the scheme is the financial empowerment of women — as many as 438 women have been categorised as 'Lakhpati Didi', a term coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to describe women whose earnings went above Rs 1 lakh in a single year. Besides this, vidyut sakhis also collected electricity bills worth Rs 369 crore under the one time settlement (OTS) scheme.
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