Lok Sabha Question No. 193 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-02-24
Subject: IT Accessibility in Rural Areas
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: SONA RAM CHOUDHARY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 193

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 24.02.2016

## IT ACCESSIBILITY IN RURAL AREAS

## 193      COL.  SONARAM  CHOUDHARY:

Will the Minister of Communications & Information Technology be pleased to state: -

- (a) the salient features of the ongoing schemes implemented for making information technology more accessible across the country;
- (b)  the  details  of  the  efforts  made  to  make  information  technology  accessible  to  the  people residing in rural and remote areas;
- (c)  whether  effective  steps  are  being  taken  or  proposed  to  be  taken  for  decentralisation  of information technology in the country; and
- (d) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a)  The Government of India is implementing an umbrella programme, namely Digital India to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

(b)  The  Government  of  India  is  implementing  several  schemes/projects  to  make  information technology  accessible to the people residing in rural and  remote  areas.  The  following schemes/projects  are  specially  targeted  to  create  access  and  connectivity  in  rural  and  remote areas to enable people in these areas to participate in the Digital India programme:

- (i) Common  Services  Centres  (CSCs):  The  CSCs  are  Information  and  Communication Technology  (ICT) enabled kiosks with broadband connectivity to provide various Governments, private  and  social  services  at  the  doorstep  of  the  citizen.  As  on  date  1.43 lakh CSCs have been made operational in 36 States/UTs.
- (ii) Digital Literacy to the masses: DeitY is implementing following two Schemes namely (a) IT Mass Literacy (National Digital Literacy Mission) and (b) 'Digital Saksharta Abhiyan' ( दिशा ) under 'Digital India' for providing Digital Literacy to the masses.

So far, under the NDLM/DISHA schemes, around 49 lakh candidates have been registered, a total of 36.5 lakh students have been trained and approximately 14.5 lakh students have been certified. A total of 1875 organizations are working as Training Partners under these schemes.

- (iii) National  Optical  Fibre  Network  (NOFN):  The  Government  has  proposed  to  provide broadband  connectivity  to  2,50,000  Gram  Panchayats  under  NOFN  (renamed  now  as BharatNet) project. Optical fibre for broadband connectivity has reached to 40,333 Gram Panchayats and optical fiber cable has been laid for 94,689 kms.
- (iv) Rural Wireline Broadband  Scheme:  The  scheme  envisaged provision of wire-line broadband connectivity to rural & remote areas by leveraging the existing rural exchanges infrastructure  and  copper  wire-line  network.  This  scheme  has  been  implemented  at  panIndia  level  with  the  objective  to  make  the  rural  and  remote  areas  broadband  enabled  by facilitating  the  service  providers  in  creating  Broadband.  A  total  of  6,56,345  broadband connections have been provided and 15,671 kiosks have been set up in rural and remote areas.
- (v) Optical Fibre Network Augmentation, Creation and Management of Intra-District SDHQDHQ  OFC  Network:  For  provision  of  broadband  in  rural  areas,  sufficient  back-haul capacity is required to integrate the voice and data traffic from the access network in the rural  areas  to  their  core  network  by  strengthening  the  OFC  network.  Accordingly,  this scheme considers OFC Network augmentation between the blocks' HQ and Districts' HQ to  begin  with.  The  states  of  Assam,  Manipur,  Meghalaya,  Tripura,  Mizoram,  Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland have been taken up for implementation.

(c) and  (d):   Yes, Sir. The Government of India is implementing 44 Mission Mode Projects and core  ICT  infrastructure  projects/schemes,  namely  State  Data  Centre  (SDC),  State  Wide  Area Network (SWAN), Common Service Centers (CSCs), State Portal and State  Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG). These schemes/projects are being implemented by Central Ministries/Departments and State/UT Governments and foster the decentralization of Information Technology at State/UT level.

********