95.15% of villages in India now have internet access: Ministry of Telecom, ET Telecom

NEW DELHI: As many as 6.12 lakh out of 6.44 lakh villages in the country have access to 3G/4G mobile connectivity, which means 95.15 per cent villages in India have internet access, the Ministry of Communications said in an official statement on Friday.

“Under the Digital India Initiative, the government has taken several steps to connect not only metropolitan cities but also second and third tier cities as well as rural and remote areas,” the ministry said.

According to the ministry’s data from March 2024, of the 954.4 million internet subscribers in India, 398.35 million use the internet in rural areas.

“The total number of internet subscribers in the country increased from 251.59 million in March 2014 to 954.40 million in March 2024, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.26%,” the ministry said.

The government intends to connect all the Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the country with optical fibre (OFC) links under the BharatNet project to provide broadband services to rural households.

As per the ministry, out of 2.22 lakh GPs earmarked for two phases of BharatNet, 2.13 lakh GPs have been made service ready. Further, the revised BharatNet programme aims to provide fibre connectivity to 42,000 unserved GPs and remaining 3.84 lakh villages on demand basis and provide 1.5 crore rural home fibre connections.

“A total of 35,680 unserved villages/settlements in the country are covered under the ongoing USOF (Universal Service Obligation Fund) schemes,” the ministry said. Under various USOF-funded schemes, around 9,000 unserved villages have been provided 4G connectivity at an amount of around Rs 11,000 crore, it added.

According to the ministry, the government has taken various measures to facilitate internet connectivity in the country. These include revised licensing conditions in August 2022 to allow installation of mobile towers in border areas, issuance of Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules 2016 and periodic amendments to the rules for faster and easier deployment of telecom infrastructure, and facilitation of Right of Way (RoW) permissions for installation of mobile towers in border areas with the launch of Gati Shakti Sanchar portal.

The ministry said that under the Digital India Initiative, a number of technology startups and innovation programmes like Technology Incubation and Entrepreneur Development (TIDE 2.0), Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups (GENESIS), Centres of Excellence (CoE) for specific domains and Next Generation Incubation Programme (NGIS) have been set up and the total financial outlay in the country has been around Rs 800 crore, including second and third tier cities.

“Furthermore, the government has launched India BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Promotion Scheme (IBPS) and North East BPO Promotion Scheme (NEBPS) by setting up 246 BPO units in 27 states/union territories of the country, spread across 104 small cities/towns,” it added.