The Union Council of Ministers on Wednesday approved a proposal related to the BharatNet project, which will allow millions of villages in India to get the benefit of fast internet. The Government of India has decided to take forward the BharatNet scheme under Public Private Partnership to connect 16 states of the country with the Internet. A budget of Rs 19041 crore will also be allocated for this.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the decision to prepare BharatNet plan for Internet expansion under PPP model has been taken on the basis of Prime Minister’s speech on August 15, 2020. The Prime Minister had said that work will be done to provide internet system to 6 lakh villages of the country in 1000 days.
According to Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rs 29,430 crore will be spent to implement the BharatNet scheme, in which the government will spend Rs 19,041 crore. The 16 states where broadband service is to be expanded are Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal. States are included. Right now the target of BharatNet scheme is to connect 2.5 lakh villages with the Internet. The target is to provide internet service up to 100 Mbps to these villages. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that as of now the government has connected 1.58 lakh villages to it, the rest will also be added soon, but the government has now come up with the PPE model, through which 3.61 lakh villages will now be connected under the BharatNet scheme.
The goal is to bring internet to the villages of 16 states
In addition to the 16 states, the Department of Telecommunications is making a plan to extend the Internet to the villages in the remaining states. The government has so far allocated Rs 61,109 crore for the BharatNet scheme. Earlier, Rs 42,068 crore has been spent to reach more than 1.5 lakh villages. Now for the remaining 1 lakh villages in the first phase, the government will spend 19,041 crore, the remaining private companies.
In the Corona era, everything from education to business has become largely based on the Internet. Bharatnet scheme will be very effective for the children studying in villages to get equal opportunities of education. Also, this BharatNet scheme is important for the expansion of the way e-commerce has increased in India. Anyway, the Indian banking sector has not been able to extend its facilities to the villages, but net banking can change this. This scheme is playing a big role in raising the standard of rural living, its expansion will bring unlimited possibilities of development.
