'Over 43,000 villages in India without mobile services'

Over 43,000 inhabited villages in India do not have mobile phone services, with Odisha accounting for the highest number of such villages at 9,940, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

The number of inhabited villages without mobile services stood at 43,088 as of July 27, 2018 (based on 2018 Survey) out of 5,97,618 inhabited villages in the country as per census 2011, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Odisha had 9,940 villages without mobile services, while 6,117 villages in Maharashtra and 5,558 villages in Madhya Pradesh did not have mobile services, the data showed.

Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Delhi, Kerala and Puducherry did not have any village without mobile services, it added.

"Wireless technologies inter-alia include 2G, 3G and 4G technology. The 2G mobile network covers 97 per cent of the population, while 3G, as well as 4G mobile networks, cover at least 88 per cent of the population of the country," Sinha said.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there were 145.82 million Internet connections in rural areas at the end of March 2018.