Government approves 2nd phase of Bharatnet
19th July, 2017Category:
The Union Cabinet has approved the second phase of the BharatNet project that forms the backbone for the Digital India initiative. However, the deadline for the delay-marred project had been pushed to March 2019. The approval entails a total estimated expenditure of ₹42,068 crore for the implementation of project bankrolled from the Universal Service Obligation Fund.
The BharatNet project, earlier National Optical Fibre Network or NOFN, seeks to bring high-speed broadband to all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs) through optical fiber. It was approved by Cabinet in 2011. The Centre was still working on completing the first phase of the project for which the deadline was March 2017. It had been able to lay optical fiber in nearly one-lakh GPs. The second phase aims at covering the remaining 1.50 lakh GPs.
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