Odisha has highest number of unelectrified villages

Odisha Channel Bureau Bhubaneswar: For several years the State government kept claiming that Odisha was a power surplus State.Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been announcing new schemes from time to time since he assumed power in the State in March 2000.He has launched as many as 11 schemes named after his father late Biju Patnaik, after whom the ruling Biju Janata Dal was named in December 1997.One of the 11 schemes named after Biju Patnaik includes the Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana that was launched way back in 2007.Odisha, however, continues to have the highest number of unelectrified villages in the country.There are 18452 villages left for electrification as on April 1, 2015 in 19 States in the country, including 3450 in Odisha alone.The neighbouring West Bengal has only 22 unelectrified villages, the lowest among the 19 States that have unelectrified villages till date.The Government of India has decided to electrify all unelectrified villages of the country by May 1, 2018. This was stated by Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.