New Delhi: The Ministry of Telecom and Communication plans to equip all the gram panchayats in the state with optical fibre network under the Bharat Net Scheme of the Union government by the end of the current year.
Union Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told Orissa POST Monday that the ministry has planned to cover all the existing gram panchayats of the state with the optical fibre network by 2018 to ensure that the Digital India movement spreads across the country.
When asked to comment on the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s statement that the scheme was being implemented at a snail’s pace in the state, Sundararajan said, “The main issues earlier raised by the Orissa government was that in terms of telecom indicators, it is one of the backward states. Now, we are focusing on two schemes mainly and expect they will really improve the indicators there – one, Bharat Net and, second, Left Wing Extremist (LWE) State Scheme.”
She added that a number of villages from the state were covered in the Phase I of Bharat Net project, while several left out villages would be covered in the recently started Bharat Net ‘Phase 2’ to ensure optical fibre networks reaches all gram panchayats of the state.
When asked about the timeline of covering all the gram panchayats in the state with optical fibre network, the telecom secretary said, “The government has given us the task of completing the project by the end of March 2019, but we want to complete it by December (2018). All gram panchayats in the state will be covered by the end of Bharat Net Phase 2.”
As per a recent reply furnished by the concerned ministry in the Lok Sabha December 24, 2017, optical fibre cables have been laid in 3237 gram panchayats in Orissa covering 8948 kms. Of these, 2397 gram panchayats have been made service ready, the minister said.
Manish Kumar, OP
