All villages connected through BharatNet will get free WiFi till March 2020: Telecom Minister

Telecom and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday that WiFi services being provided in villages through BharatNet will be free of charge till March 2020.

“We have already connected 1.3 lakh gram panchayats through BharatNet optical fibre network… Our target is to take this to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats. To promote utilisation of BharatNet services, we will provide WiFi free in all villages connected through BharatNet till March 2020,” the Minister said.

48,000 villages currently connected under the BharatNet project have WiFi access.

The minister also said that banking services will be provided through the common service centres (CSCs). The number of CSCs, which act as access points for delivery of digital services, has increased from about 60,000 in 2014 to 3.6 lakh at present.

The BharatNet project, also known as Bharat Broadband Network Limited was started with an objective of establishing, managing, and operating of the National Optical Fibre Network to provide a minimum of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) connectivity to all 250,000 gram panchayats in the country. The telecom infrastructure provider is set up by the Government of India under the Department of Telecommunications.