116 villages electrified last week: Govt

New Delhi: As many as 116 villages were electrified last week in the country, taking the total number to 7,128, the Power Ministry said on Monday.

The government has a set a target to electrify 18,452 un-electrified villages within 1,000 days by May 1, 2018.

"Out of these electrified villages, 11 villages fall in Arunachal Pradesh, 27 in Assam, 46 in Chhattisgarh, 12 in Jharkhand, 4 in Madhya Pradesh, 4 in Bihar, 1 in Manipur, 6 in Odisha and 5 in Rajasthan," the Ministry said.

The project has been taken on mission mode and strategy for electrification consists of squeezing the implementation schedule to 12 months and dividing village electrification process in 12 stage milestones with defined timelines for monitoring.

AIn FY 2015-16, the Centre electrified 7,012 villages achieving its target of electrifying 7,000 villages last fiscal.

To expedite the progress, close monitoring is being done through Gram Vidyut Abhiyanta (GVA) and various actions are also being taken on regular basis.

The actions include reviewing the progress on monthly basis, sharing list of villages which are at the stage of under energisation with the state discoms and identifying the villages where milestone progress is delayed.