After a long wait, the Indian government has given its approval to provide affordable, quality telecommunication services in rural and remote areas, which will improve the GDP of the country through telecommunications. The government will be connecting all 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats in the nation through an optical cable, under the National Optical Fibre Network.
The NTP has assured to provide high speed, as well as high quality broadband access to all panchayats of villages with the help of a combination of technologies, by the year 2014. By the year 2020, all villages in the country will be covered. The project will be started through a tripartite MoU between the state government, Bharat Broadband Network Limited and the central government.
The three parties will execute the project which has been recently signed. A statement from the government said, “The Central Government, through Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), is funding the project, while the contribution of State Government would be by providing free Right of Way (RoW) for laying OFC”. The MoU has been signed by about 16 states in the country and the arrangement is to cover 1,40,727 GPs with the optical fibre network in the states, as well as union territories.
