Centre promises free Wi-Fi to 48,000 villages till March 2020-The Hindu-(PG-)-26-12-2019

Context:

In order to promote the uptake of the Internet in rural areas, the government has promised free Wi-Fi to about 48,000 villages, which are connected through the government's flagship Bharatnet project, for three months from January to March 2020.

Details:

Under the Bharatnet initiative, the government has already connected 1.3 lakh gram panchayats.
The target is to take this to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats. With the Bharatnet initiative, the Centre aims to connect all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats through optical fibre.

Till now, about 48,000 villages have been connected to Wi-Fi using Bharatnet.

The government is aiming to convert at least 15% of the total villages to digital villages in the next 3-4 years.

Digital Village, which was conceptualised by the Common Service Centre (CSC) SPV under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, is a village where citizens can avail various e­-services of the Central and the State governments, as well as of private players.

These include banking, insurance, tele-­medicine, pension and e-governance services.

Such villages are also equipped with LED bulb assembly unit, sanitary napkin unit, and rural Wi-Fi
infrastructure.

The scheme has been unveiled at five locations as a pilot project. Considering the success of the pilot, the government is looking to set up 700 Digital Villages across the country, one in every district.