The government has reportedly laid optic fibre cable (OFC) in 23,604 gram panchayats till July 2015 to provide high speed broadband connectivity under the BharatNet project.
In order to ensure equity in access and to accelerate the socio-economic growth in the rural areas, the Government has planned to connect all 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats in the country with minimum 100 Mbps bandwidth under the project.
The BharatNet aims at providing broadband connections to villages at monthly rate Rs. 150 in poor states and at Rs. 250 per month in more economically.
The deadline to connect all panchayats was fixed by the end of 2013, however was deferred to September 2015 by the UPA government.
The NDA government revised the timeline for project completion.
A committee was constituted under former IT Secretary J Satyanarayana to suggest alternatives for faster implementation of the project.
