Cabinet approves Rs 1.39 lakh cr for connecting 6.4 lakh villages with broadband

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

broadband connectivity plan for 6.4 lakh villages across the country under the BharatNet project with an outlay of Rs 1.39 lakh crore, according to sources. Around 1.94 lakh villages have been connected under the BharatNet project at present, and the balance is likely to be connected in two and a half years, they added. «The Cabinet in its meeting, held on Friday evening, has approved Rs 1,39,579 crore for providing last mile optical fibre-based connectivity to homes in all villages of the country,» one of the sources said.

The last-mile connectivity will be provided by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), an arm of state-owned BSNL, in partnership with village level entrepreneur (VLE). «The model to take fibre-to-the-home, with the help of a local entrepreneur, was finalised after the successful completion of a pilot project. The pilot project was initially carried out to connect villages in four districts and then expanded to 60,000 villages across most states,» as per sources.

Customer premise equipment and additional fibre required for connecting homes are provided by BBNL, and local entrepreneurs have been tasked with maintaining the network. «Around 3,800 entrepreneurs were involved in the pilot project that was carried out for 60,000 villages, who provided 3.51 lakh broadband connections. Average data consumption per household has been recorded to the tune of 175 gigabytes per month,» one of the sources said.