Modi govt plans free Wi-Fi in villages adopted by MPs

Wi-Fi Choupal Representational image | CSC e-Governance services India Limited

Minister of State for Communications Manoj Sinha informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that all villages that have been adopted by MPs across India under the 'Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna' will be provided free Wi-Fi services by the Narendra Modi government.

Sinha was responding to a question from MP Virender Kashyap. Sinha said the Modi government has proposed to set up 25,000 Wi-Fi hotspots at existing rural exchanges of BSNL through its comprehensive telecom development plan and in future, all other agencies/private telecom operators will be engaged to provide Wi-Fi services to every panchayat across India.

Sinha said the Modi government had set a target of linking each of the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats of India through optical fibre network under BharatNet Project.

According to Sinha, 1 lakh gram panchayats have been connected under the Digital India programme in phase 1 up to December 2017 and an additional 1.5 lakh panchayats will be connected with high-speed internet by March 2019.

Sinha said 1,13,091 gram panchayats have been connected with high-speed internet by July 15.

The Modi government has executed a project for providing mobile services in specific locations in 10 states affected by left-wing extremism, Sinha informed Kashyap.

Under this project, 2,355 locations in areas affected by left-wing extremism were chosen for installation of towers in phase 1.

Sinha said a total of 4,072 towers will be installed in the second phase of the project, which was approved by the Modi government on May 23.

Kashyap demanded the minister expedite the BharatNet project services in hilly areas especially in Himachal Pradesh, where the power grid has been given the task of connecting this broadband service, which is proceeding at a very slow pace.

Kashyap demanded that the power grid be asked to work expeditiously, so as to provide these services within the stipulated time period of March 2019.

Sinha assured the MP that the government will take positive steps for completion of the project in hilly areas in time-bound manner.