The villages in the Union Territory of Chandigarh would soon be riding the information superhighway.
The UT Department of Information Technology has inked a tripartite agreement with Department of Telecommunications, Government of India and Bharat Broadband Network limited (BBNl) for laying optical fiber cable to enable connectivity of the villages of Chandigarh under the Government of India’s IT flagship project National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN).
The Government of India is creating a National Optical Fiber Network as a national asset, for providing broadband to 250,000 panchayats across the country. A minimum bandwidth of 100 Mbps will be made available at each gram panchayat and it would lead to the proliferation of broadband services. Bharat Broadband Network limited (BBNl), a special purpose vehicle that has been incorporated by the Department of Telecommunications for the NOFN project, is the executing agency for the project.
A spokesperson of the UT Administration said that the prime objective of NOFN is to extend the existing optical network that is presently available up to district and block levels, up to panchayat level.
NOFN would help to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural Chandigarh and it is the first step towards transforming our villages into e-villages. NOFN would not only enable provision of e-services to the rural populace but it would also help to boost GDP as well because a world bank study has highlighted a direct relation between broadband penetration and GDP, said the spokesperson.
The broadband connectivity to the villages across the nation would cost Rs20,000 crore and it would enable the provision of e-governance, e-banking, e-health, e-learning services to the villagers.