BSNL has already provided telephones to 5 lakh villages and broadband to 30,500 villages in the country.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will shortly launch a scheme to provide public telephone facility to another 50,000 newly identified villages. An agreement for this purpose is likely to be signed soon with BSNL. These 50,000 villages include new villages appearing in Census 2001, villages with population less than 100, and those left out earlier because of various reasons. Village Public Telephones (VPTs) will come up in such uncovered villages with subsidy support from DoT's Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the next year.

The government is already implementing a scheme to provide subsidized public telephone facility to 66,822 uncovered villages under the Bharat Nirman programme. Out of these, 54,700 villages have already been covered and the remaining are likely to be covered by the end of the current year. About 5,000 remotely located villages are being provided with VPT using satellite technology i.e. Digital Satellite Phone Terminals (DSPTs). Maximum numbers of villages covered so far under the scheme are from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

BSNL has provided telephones to 5.5 lakh villages across the country. The telecom giant has also brought 30,500 villages under the reach of broadband.