160 villages electrified last week: Government

The union power ministry electrified 160 villages in the country last week, the ministry said on Monday.

"Of the electrified villages, 57 fall in Chhattisgarh, 40 in Odisha, 27 in Bihar, 16 in Rajasthan, nine each in Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh and one village each in the states of Tripura and Assam," the ministry said in a statement.

"Electrification of 160 villages resulted in overall increase of 42 percent over the week before of the ongoing electrification process under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna," it added.

"Happy to share that we electrified 160 villages last week, an increase of 42 percent over the week before," Power Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted.

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

In a separate communication, the ministry said Jharkhand would be the first state to sign an MOU on adopting the union government-approved UDAY scheme for debt restructuring of state distribution companies (discoms) at a ceremony here on Tuesday.