• Home
• GOVERNMENT CXO
• E-GOVERNMENT
• CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
• TAX AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
• GREEN GOVERNMENT
• GOVERNMENT DATA MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT SECURITY
• GOVERNMENT CLOUD
• GOVERNMENT ANALYTICS
• GOVERNMENT GIS
• CONNECTED GOVERNMENT
• DIGITAL INCLUSION
• EDUCATION IT
• HEALTHCARE IT

Digital Inclusion

Govt discusses National Broadband plan

By Pia Rufino | 6 September 2011

The policy makers in the country have met to discuss the national broadband plan of the Department of Telecommunications aimed at bridging the digital divide in the country.

Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology who chaired the meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry held late August said the government has formulated various rural broadband schemes.

Through the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), Sibal said, the Rural Wireline Broadband scheme is created to provide broadband connections in the rural areas.

The USOF was created by the telecom department to give grants for connecting rural areas.

As of June 2011, a total of 2,88,454 broadband connections are established under the Rural Wireline scheme.

The target is to establish 8,88,832 connections and 28,762 kiosks by 2014.

Sibal further said the government is planning to bring satellite broadband connectivity in areas where terrestrial connectivity is not possible.

The USOF is also looking to provide subsidy for the wireless broadband active infrastructure by using the existing infrastructure available with the Telecom service providers, Sibal said.

This subsidy scheme would provide broadband coverage to a majority of villages at a speed of 512 kbps.

The Minister also mentioned about the plans to build a National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) to provide optical connectivity to all the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats by using the USOF.

A High Level Committee has been setup to steer and coordinate all activities related to the creation and implementation NOFN.

However, the Minister expressed concern about India only having 12.32 million broadband connections in the country at the end of June 2011 as against the target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010, set by the Broadband Policy 2004.

The net broadband addition per month is just 0.2 to 0.3 million in contrast to around 18 million mobile connections per month.

According to Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India, the total number of broadband connections is expected to be 75 million by 2012 and 160 million by 2014.

Tweet

---