Modi's idea of digital India, a game changer for 20 lakh Indian villagers

Giving a new fillip to the Digital India vision Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence day speech had announced that every village in the country will be connected by the optical fibre cable (OFC) in the next 1,000 days. Now in the latest bit of development, the optical fiber laying has been completed in about 1.5 lakh villages in the country and the aim is to finish the work in the remaining 4.5 lakh villages soon.

Speaking about the elaborate plans, Dinesh Tyagi, CEO of the Common Service Center (CSC) said, one common service center will be setup in each village and  the arrival of optical fiber employment is likely to open up job opportunities for the unemployed villagers. Approximately, 20 lakh people are likely to be the beneficiaries of Common Service Center. Meanwhile, a  village level entrepreneur will be appointed to help villagers to sell the crops from within their premises through banking facilities.

The other added advantage will be the enhanced broadband experience and the opportunity to sell their items through e-commerce portals. The target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech to connect every village in the country with optical fibre cable (OFC) in 1,000 days is only possible with the help of a good broadband experience. Thus it is likely that all villages will be added under the BharatNet program which is a challenging jump wherein the weakness of BharatNet as a pure play government programme could show up. For the unversed, The Manmohan Singh-led UPA government initiated the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) programme in 2011, but the Modi government renamed the programme as BharatNet. The government aims to connect all gram panchayats and villages in India via BharatNet in order to make the country self-reliant.