By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, NOV 13, 2017: The Union Minister of Communications, Mr Manoj Sinha, said that government will provide all the necessary and requisite support for fulfilling the dream of a fully connected and truly empowered India very soon. Inaugurating a National Conference on “BharatNet and its Utilization with States” in New Delhi, he said that this is govt's mission for the nation. It is equally a call to action for the entire nation, “Connect India”, and then watch India - Create, Collaborate and Conquer. The Minister exhorted that "every one of us - the states governments, private sector players, TSPs, Internet, Technology and Digital Services Companies, Media, Academia, Civil Society, Do-gooders, change makers to work together for making this a success."

He said, with BharatNet and the Digital India programme, Govt hopes to touch lives, connect people, inform, educate, spread awareness, create jobs, save lives, build relationships, nurture bonds, make significant investments, contribute to the exchequer and the economy and above all bridge the digital divide and amplify financial inclusion. He said that the National Optical Fiber Network (NoFN) (now renamed as BharatNet) project was launched in 2012 with the approval of Union Cabinet provided in Oct, 2011. When it was launched previously it was actually, no fun for any one. Little or no progress had been made. Progress had been rather slow and the actual work on the project commenced only in the second half of 2014. The project involves connecting all the 2,50,000 GPs in the country to the block headquarters for provision of both bandwidth and dark fiber on a universal and non-discriminatory basis. The network is capable of providing scalable bandwidth of up to 1 GBPS. The provision of broadband & internet penetration and e-services has a positive impact on GDP growth besides quicker, transparent and cost effective governance.