23 mn homes in villages still without power, 17% don't have drinking water

The first mobile phone call in India was made in 1995; now, 23 years later, 43,000-odd inhabited villages do not have mobiles services

Up to 23 million households (in over 292,000 villages) without electricity; 7% (43,000) villages without mobile services; 17% rural habitations without clean drinking water; 25% of 14- to 18-year-olds (nearly 88 million) in rural areas cannot read basic text in own language.

These data reflect those left out of India’s growth story in the country’s rural areas, home to 833 million or 69% of the population, according to various data sets analysed by IndiaSpend.

As India’s economy grew seven-fold over 25 years to Rs 121.9 lakh crore ($1.8 trillion) in 2016-17, moving to the world’s