Talking about the progress of Digital India programme initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister for Communications Manoj Sinha who is also in charge of Minister of State for Railways, said all Gram Panchayats (GP) in the country will have Wi-Fi connectivity by December 2018.
Sinha was talking to the media persons at State BJP headquarters on Sunday on the occasion of completing three years in office by the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre.
“Except three left Wing Extremism (lWEs) affect districts of Jharkhand, up to 70 per cent of the work has already been completed in 1 lakh GPs identified for the first phase of the project. While efforts are being made to complete the work in those three districts very soon,” said the Union Minister.
The Minister further admitting to the fact that Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited was in losses during the year 2006-7 when private parties were making entries into communications sector and BSNl was upgrading its technologies, claimed that it had started making profit.
“last year, BSNl had made profit of Rs 3880 crore and estimated profit this year is Rs 4000 crore,” said Sinha. An increase of 1.45 per cent rise in consumers has also been registered this year as compared to last year, he said.
Sinha said that BSNl in future will be seen providing better services to the people of this country. Reiterating that there was no question of privatizing Railways in Modi Raj, the Union Minister said that the Government definitely was making efforts to attract private investment in Railways.
“There is no question of privatisation of Railways till Narendra Modi is Prime Minister of India, but the talks are definitely going on to attract private investors for invest in Railways so that better service could be provided to the people,” said the Union Minister. At least 5-6 investors have shown their interest to invest in Railways as 400 Railway Stations, including Ranchi, have been identified to develop them as stations of International standards, he added.
“We definitely want investments from the private parties, but not privatisation of Railways,” said Sinha. Referring to the proposal of operating high speed bullet trains in the Country, Sinha said that Ahmedabad and Mumbai sectors have been identified for high speed trains and the process has already been initiated in this regard.