141 more villages in India electrified last week

New Delhi, July 18 (IANS) A total of 141 villages in 11 states were electrified during the week ended July 17 under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna, an official said on Monday.

"Of the electrified villages, 31 are in Assam, 56 in Meghalaya, 23 in Odisha, nine in Rajasthan, five each in Arunachal Pradesh and Bihar, four in Mizoram, three each in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, and one each in Himachal Pradesh and Tripura," a statement from the Union Power Ministry said.

A total of 8,960 villages have been electrified till date in the country, it said.

Of the remaining 8,995 villages, 6,009 are to be electrified through grid, 2,657 through off-grid solutions necessitated by geographical barriers, and 329 villages are to be electrified by the state governments, the statement said adding that 497 villages are uninhabited.

At the state Power Ministers' meeting held in Goa in June, the Central government and the states resolved to meet the target of taking electricity to all villages by the end of 2016, ahead of the original deadline of May 1, 2018, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal had said.