Govt tweaks Bharat Net, clears Rs 1.39 lakh cr for last-mile broadband link

Contact Counsellor

Last Updated08/08/2023

The Union Cabinet recently approved Rs 1.39 lakh crore for modernising the BharatNet project.
With this upgrade, the government is looking to speed up its process in connecting all 640,000 villages over the next 2.5 years.
This involves changing its execution strategy and providing fiber connections to the last mile through Village Level Entrepreneurs on a 50:50 revenue-sharing basis.
The cost for taking the infrastructure to the home will be borne by the government.
The rural enterpreneur will only need to be involved in maintenance and operations of home connections.

Bharat Net is the world's largest optical fiber-based rural broadband connectivity project.
It is executed by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), a special purpose organisation under the Ministry of Communications.
The project is a Centre-State collaborative project.
- The states contribute free Rights of Way for establishing the Optical Fibre Network.
Objectives
- To facilitate the delivery of e-governance, e-health, e-education, e-banking, Internet and other services to rural India.
- To connect all the 2,50,000 Gram panchayats in the country and provide 100 Mbps connectivity to all gram panchayats.
Funding
- The entire project is being funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
  - It was set up for improving telecom services in rural and remote areas of the country.