One of the new technologies ide n tified by policymakers and the general public to be important in the coming decade is broadband (high-speed) internet access. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recently issued a consultation paper on the “National Broadband Plan” (NBP) to initiate a discussion on all the pertinent issues regarding the growth of this segment and has invited comments on it from all stakeholders. Broadband penetration is just 0.74 per cent when compared with teledensity of 52.74 per cent. A need is being felt to identify impediments and create an environment to encourage broadband growth. The net broadband addition per month is just 0.1 to 0.2 million in contrast to approximately 18 million mobile connections per month.
Even though 70 per cent of Indian population lives in rural areas, broadband facility is limited to metro and major cities. This is not very healthy situation for a growing economy like India and there is need for an urgent focus on creation of robust national infrastructure scalable to cater to future requirements not only in urban areas but also in villages. Availability of broadband is critical for development of rural areas. Out of the 9 million broadband subscribers at the end of April 2010, just 5 per cent are in rural areas. The low broadband penetration in rural areas is attributed to non-availability of transmission media connectivity up to the village level. For making all villages broadband-enabled, an option being explored is taking optic fibre to 375,552 villages having population of 500 or more. Such a network would require laying of about 12 billion kilometres of optic fibre at a cost of about Rs 23,900 crore. The consultation paper suggests that funding of such project could be considered from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for non-skilled work and from Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) for material and equipment cost.
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