Telecom Ministry Okays E-Governance Platform

On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the country’s major e-governance platform-Common Service Centres (CSC) — has been approved by Ministry of Telecom to manage and maintain Bharat Net last mile access point in more than 1.2 lakh Panchayat across the country to provide internet access at Rs 1 per month.

Sources in Telecom Ministry said the Bharat Net access points will now be shifted phase wise from Panchayats to the CSC. “The CSC village level entrepreneurs (VLE) will maintain and manage the nodes for enabling citizen to access internet. Already CSC has more than one million subscribers and consum more than 40 TB of data in a month and this move will empower the villages of India like Bapujio dreamt of empowering the rural areas of our country,” said a ministry official.

CSC in a Special Purpose Vehicle and to begin with, CSC CEO Dr Dinesh Tyagi on 150th anniversary celebartiosn of Mahatma Gandhi launched the Rs 1 -unlimited data usage for a month to rural citizen at a function in Ulhadi village of Alwar Block in Rajasthan. The event was also attended by Telecom Ministry Joint Secretary Amit Yadav. Yadav said GoI has announced one lakh villages to be made Digital Villages and extend wifi / Bharat net to all 2.5 lakh Panchayats.―The Pioneer