Friday, November 7, 2008

Govt of India to provide Internet Connection to Gram Panchayats

In a major initiative to increase India’s Internet density, Govt. of India is funding a project, namely Rural Broadband Project, to provide fast broadband Internet connection to all Gram Panchayats (GPs) by 2012, said A. Raja, Union IT and Communications Minister. The project is also to include all Govt. Higher Secondary Schools and Public Health Centers for providing such connection to empower rural e-Governance.


Explaining scope of the project, the minister said, “The Universal Service Organisation (USO) funds is being extensively deployed on a large scale to increase the broadband connectivity in rural area. We are making continuous efforts and committed to extend communication facilities with broadband connectivity at each block and village level. Once these facilities are in place, the broadband connectivity will be available on demand”. He even has indicated of offering PCs as part of bundled scheme along with Internet broadband connection. “The government is planning to launch bundled schemes of broadband along with customer premise equipment, including PCs with the subsidy support from USO fund,” he said. The minister was delivering a lecture on ‘Telecom Sector in Education Development’ at the National Round Table Conference held recently at New Delhi.

The round table conference was jointly organized by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the Communication and Manufacturing Association of India (CMAI). Besides, several university-heads and premier telecom companies had attended the conference to devise a strategy for enhancing distance learning system through optimum utilization of telecom infrastructures and IT facilities.

“It is heartening to note that efforts have already been initiated in this direction. We need to make available free tools and fonts to the public for all the major Indian languages. Then only, the domain of knowledge can be easily extended to our common man”, said the minister.

1 comment:

  1. The Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar aims to recognize innovations in governance that are happening every day in villages across India. We want to publicly recognize good ideas and create incentives for further innovation in local governance throughout the country. Please join our official orkut community to celebrate successes, share ideas with one another, and improve the quality of public services in villages by clicking here: http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=57729110

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