(This story originally appeared in on Aug 04, 2017)

NEW DELHI: In an indicator of the state of school infrastructure in the country, Centre told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that over 37% of schools did not have electricity connections till March 2017.While only 62.81% schools in the country have electricity connections, Jharkhand is at the bottom of the list with just 19% schools in the state having access to electricity. The national capital along with Chandigarh, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Puducherry top the list with 100% schools having electricity connection.Some of the states with poor access to electricity are Assam (25% and Meghalaya (28.54%). Others in the list include Bihar (37.78%), Madhya Pradesh (28.80%), Manipur (39.27%), Odisha (33.03%) and Tripura (29.77%).State minister for HRD, Upendra Kushwaha in written response to a question at the Rajya Sabha stated that the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) annually collects the information on various educational indicators including infrastructural facilities in schools through the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).He said the Centre supported state governments and Union Territory administrations for creation and augmentation of infrastructure facilities including electrification in government elementary and secondary schools under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan programmes. Under SSA, 1,87,248 elementary schools have been provided internal electrification up to 2016-17 and under RMSA, electricity had been provided in 12,930 secondary schools so far.