Odisha has 11k villages sans mobile signals

Among the country's states, Odisha has the largest number of villages — 11,000 — without mobile telephone connectivity.

None of these have a mobile tower, shows a survey by the department of telecom, with the help of the state government's electronics & information technology (IT) department. The state has a total of 51,565 villages, across 30 districts.

“The matter has been flagged with the NITI Aayog. Beside, the state IT department has written to the secretary, telecom, to devise a programme to cover these 11,000 villages. Citizens there are deprived of various e-governance services,” said a government official.

In the districts of Gajapati,