Lucknow, Aug 28 (IANS): The holy city of Ayodhya will be free of overhead electricity cables by 2023 as part of the government's ambitious plan to develop the temple town.

Almost 50 per cent of the process of laying underground cables has been completed.

The project was initiated under the 'Ujjawal Bharat, Ujjwal Bhavishya Power 2047' scheme of ministry of power, NTPC Tanda and Ayodhya district administration at an outlay of Rs 179. 60 crore.

Executive engineer power department, Pradeep Kumar Verma, said, "So far, we have laid close to 50 per cent underground cable. We started the project under Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) scheme in June 2021 and expect to complete it by June 2023."

The department claimed that by October, work related to aerial bundled cable (ABC) will be completed.

Apart from this, 3.81 lakh LED lights have been distributed in Ayodhya so far under the Ujala scheme resulting in a reduction of 20.22 MW in power demand.

With this, the department has saved Rs 19 lakh.

Verma further said, "Besides underground cabling, electrification of 2,556 villages have been completed under Saubhagya Yojana Phase-I at a cost of Rs 61.80 crore.

Under this 1.02 lakh houses have been provided power connections. Out of total households, 37,239 BPL families have also benefited from the scheme. Apart from this, 13,260 houses in 147 villages have been provided power connection at a cost of Rs 10.27 crore under Saubhagya Yojana Phase-II.

In these 807 BPL families have been included."