The central government will provide free WiFi till March 2020 to all villages connected through the BharatNet broadband service at present, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday.
At present, around 48,000 villages connected through the BharatNet project have WiFi access.
“We have connected 1.3 lakh gram panchayats through BharatNet network so far. Our aim is to take this further to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats. To promote further utilisation, we will provide WiFi free in all villages connected through BharatNet till March 2020,” Prasad said at an event here.
The government’s BharatNet project aims to provide access to all the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats across the country. Last year, the government said it had connected nearly 1 lakh gram panchayats through BharatNet in phase-one.
The Common Service Centres (CSCs) act as the nodal point from where the WiFi and broadband services are distributed.
Read more of this in a report published in The Indian Express... (Link given below)
