The State-level BharatNet Project implementation committee meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Ajay Singh at the Chhattisgarh Assembly premises here on Thursday.
The proposal to uplink rural regions with network connectivity by 2019 was deliberated at the meeting, officials informed.
The Chief Secretary called upon the meeting to appoint a sub-committee at district-level to incorporate panchayat, forest , Home and other departments.
Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) Chief Executive Officer Alex Paul Menon gave a detailed presentation of the department.
He said master plan to connect 5987 gram panchayats with optical fibre network by 2018 had been prepared at a cost of Rs1624 crore.
Tenders had been called for fibre network . The target is to provide Wi-Fi in all the panchayats by 2019.
Notably, Chhattisgarh Government in December last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for the implementation of second phase of Bharat Net project .
Chief Minister Raman Singh said that Chhattisgarh is entering a new era of 'Digital Revolution'.
The Chief Minister was addressing a function after signing of MoU of Bharat Net Project here between the State Government and Central Government.
Union Minister of State for Communication Manoj Sinha was the chief guest on the occasion.
Singh said that Bharat Net Project will bridge the 'Digital Divide' between the rural and urban regions as 85 development blocks and 5987 gram panchayats will be connected with optical fiber network. Total investment will be about Rs 1624 crore.
At present work is in progress to link about 4,000 gram panchayats with optical fiber network.
MP Ramesh Bais, Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand, Electronics and Information Technology Department Principal Secretary Aman Kumar Singh and several senior officers were also present.
The Chief Minister said that the priorities of the so-called backward regions like Abhujmargh have also changed. The residents are demanding mobile connectivity along with roads, schools and hospitals.
Singh said that three digital connectivity projects entailing an investment of Rs 3400 crore- Bastar Net, Bharat Net and Sky- are under various stages of completion.
The Chief Minister said his dream is to see that all gram panchayats have video-conferencing facility with the State Capital.
The Chief Minister expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister of State Manoj Sinha for sanctioning second phase of Bharat Net Project to Chhattisgarh.
Sinha said that Information Highway is the hallmark of development at present. 'Ring Method' modern tech is being adopted in the State which is the first of its kind in the entire country.
He said that Central Government had sanctioned 1028 mobile towers at an additional expenditure of Rs1830 crore in the left-Wing Extremism (lWE) affected districts of Chhattisgarh. People are judged whether they are Online or Offline.
Sinha said that Bharat Net Project is a fine example of co-operative federalism in which Chhattisgarh tops the list. The agreement with the State is the best among all eight states.
He added that 5G network will come soon in the country.
The Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS), the nodal agency of Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of Chhattisgarh will be getting route survey and Right of Way (RoW) clearance done for Bharat Net Phase-II project in the State, officials informed.