Although rural electrification projects and programs have been implemented in many countries, they suffered from design, planning, implementation and operational flaws. This paper presents a risk management framework in order to manage large scale development projects effectively. The proposed framework first identifies, with the involvement of the stakeholders, the risk factors of a rural electrification programme at three different levels. Subsequently it develops a qualitative risk prioritizing scheme through probability and severity mapping and provides mitigating measures for most vulnerable risks. The study concludes that the hierarchical risk management approach provides an effective framework for managing large-scale rural electrification program.