Govt plans to subsidise internet for rural India

Worried over missing the broadband addition target, the government is now planning to give sub sidy for new broadband connection in the rural parts of the country. The subsidy would be up to 50% of the total cost of setting the system by service providers. Also, running cost of internet in rural ar eas would be about half of those in the cities. These steps are being taken in a move to strengthen the e governance network as the government has miser ably failed on this front.

“We are in the process of finalising the subsidy mechanism for rural broadband connections in consultation with the finance ministry,” an official in the department of telecommunications (DoT said.

The scheme would be implemented in phased manner across the country and would also cover remote ares including the north-eastern states, the official said adding the final scheme would be worked out taking in consideration views of all stakeholders. The new scheme would cover common service centres (CSCs) being set up by the department of information technology (DIT) schools, primary health centres and gram panchay ats in a phased manner.

E-governance is one of the key areas of concern for the UPA government. The government has not been able to achieve the desired level of efficiency in the project due to many reasons, including low penetration of internet in rural areas. In fact, the DIT could not utilise the money allocated in the last year’s budget and returned Rs 102 crore due to under utilisation. According to data available with the finance ministry DIT could use only Rs 617 crore against the allocated Rs 719 crore on e-governance projects.

The national e-governance plan (NeGP) covers 27 mission mode projects and 8 support component to be implemented at the central, state and local government levels. The project includes setting up of one lakh CSCs in six lakh villages across the country. On the front of broadband connections, total connections as on 30 April 2008 stood at 4.01 million. This is against the government’s target of nine million connections by 2007 and 20 million connections by 2010.

Source : EconomicTimes