77 Odisha villages electrified in first week of Feb

New Delhi: The Union Power Ministry electrified 245 villages of the country including 77 in Odisha during the first week of February under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna.

"Of these electrified villages, 82 villages belong to Assam, 77 in Odisha, 69 in Jharkhand, 13 to Chhattisgarh and two each in Tripura and Madhya Pradesh," the ministry said in a statement here on Monday.

A total of 5,027 villages have been electrified during 2015-16, till date, the statement added.

The government said it has decided to electrify the remaining 18,452 un-electrified villages by May 1, 2018.

"Out of the remaining 13,425 villages, 10,487 villages are to be electrified through grid; 1,997 villages through off-grid where grid solutions are out of reach due to geographical barriers and 941 villages are to be electrified by the their state governments," it said.

"The project has been taken on mission mode and strategy for electrification consists of squeezed implementation schedule of 12 months with 12-stage milestones for village electrification monitoring with defined timelines," the statement added.