No mobile coverage in 11,200 Odisha villages

The State Government has sent a proposal to the NITI Aayog saying that as Odisha is a connectivity deficit State with overall tele-density of about 83 per cent and rural tele-density of about 50 per cent, it needs an urgent improvement.

Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi has written to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in this regard, said official sources.

About 11,200 villages in Odisha do not have mobile coverage out of 51,313 villages. Availability of high speed broadband in all Gram Panchayats is very slow and lags behind in comparison to other States.

Even after mobile towers have been set up in the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) areas, the bandwidth is very low due to some technical reasons, which must be addressed immediately.

Bharat Net Project is not proceeding at the desired pace. Only 44 Gram Panchayats have been connected in Bharat Net Phase-I out of the target of 3,860 Gram Panchayats.

Similarly, lack of brick and mortar bank branches and dat a connectivity impede digital payment and financial inclusion, pointed out Padhi.

Financial inclusion is one of the important areas which needs strong coordination between the Centre and the State. And financial inclusion in Odisha is constrained by lack of brick and mortar bank branches and lack of telecom and internet connectivity. More than 70 per cent of Gram Panchayats do not have a bank branch.

Only 221 branches have been opened during the last three years. However, 4,376 Gram Panchayats are yet to be covered.

In the 10 Aspirational Districts, 280 Gram Panchayats do not have either bank branch or a Banking Correspondent within a radius of 5 km.

They include 17 GPs in Balangir, one in Dhenkanal, 29 in Gajapati, 66 in Kalahandi, 41 in Kandhamal, 42 in Koraput, 23 in Malkangiri, five in Nabarangpur, 13 in Nuapada, and 43 in Rayagada .

The goal of digital payment would not be realised unless banking system is extended to the rural areas, said Padhi.

The commercial banks are also not delivering adequate credit, he pointed out.

Padhi urged that instruction may be issued from the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, to all banks to open bank branches in identified unbanked GPs. The payment banks licensed by Reserve Bank of India may also be mandated to open branches in some of the unbanked GPs. He also urged for adequate credit delivery for the agriculture and other priority sectors.

The share of commercial banks in the short term crop loan segment varies between 35-40 per cent although they have a large deposit base.

Similarly, in case of long term agricultural loan, the achievement against target is in the range of 42-76 per cent where the commercial banks should come forward to fill up the gap in case of Mudra loan, he said.