Bhubaneswar, July 3: In rural Odisha, 16.29 per cent of tribal households use mobile phones - the fact has come to light following announcement of the results of the socio-economic and caste census-2011.

The detailed results of the survey, conducted by the Union rural development ministry, were released today.

The statistics show that 3.35 lakh out of 20.62 lakh scheduled tribe (ST) rural households in Odisha possess mobile phones. Gujarat, on the other hand, boasts of the highest number of cell phone users in the ST rural households (8.20 lakh). However, in terms of percentage, Delhi tops the list of such households at 89.57 per cent. However, the number of land phone users among the tribal households in Odisha is pegged at only 4,831 (0.23 per cent), while only 3,730 ST households (0.18 per cent) use both land phone and mobile phones.

According to the census, Odisha has total 98.85 lakh households, of which more than 86.22 lakh live at 51,442 villages and 12.62 lakh in 107 cities and towns.

There are more than 20.62 lakh ST households in Odisha, while the number of scheduled caste (SC) households is more than 15.55 lakh. Of the 4.19 crore population of the state, tribal people account for a whopping 22.85 per cent (above 95.90 lakh) and the scheduled caste for 17.13 per cent (71.88 lakh).

Significantly, 23,131 ST households (1.12 per cent) pay income or professional tax as against total 2.20 lakh income tax or professional tax payer households (2.55 per cent) in the state.

While 41,540 ST households (2.01 per cent) have salaried government jobs, 4,723 (0.23 per cent) have public sector and 9,970 have private sector jobs (0.48 per cent). More than 19.73 lakh ST households (95.69 per cent) earn a monthly income of less than Rs 5,000, as many as 54,595 (2.65 per cent) between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 and 33,749 tribal households (1.64 per cent) have a monthly income above Rs 10,000.