NEW DELHI: State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is keen to offer Internet bandwidth to the Members of Parliament to digitally empower people in their constituencies through the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna initiative under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme.
Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna, or SAGY, is a rural development programme, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan on October 11, 2014, to facilitate village-level empowerment in a speedier manner.
Till now, as many as 35 villages have been connected through the Wi-Fi Radio Access Network with lawmakers such as Nitin Gadkari, Devendra Fadnavis, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Praful Patel, Ajay Sancheti and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumita Mahajan approaching the state-owned telco.
In a letter dated July 25, 2016, a copy of which is with the ET, BSNL chairman Anupam Shrivastava seeks support from all the 543 parliamentarians individually to provision Wi-Fi services in their respective constituencies or villages to accelerate Digital India programme as part of government-to-government (G2G) initiative.
“We have written to all the members of Parliament to purchase bulk bandwidth from us using MPLAD funds. This is going to be a win-win situation as BSNL will put down ducts, offer optic fibre connectivity and undertake Wi-Fi hotspots installation via a systems integrator as well as round-the-clock monitoring,” said Shrivastava.
BSNL, however, already shot a similar letter to all the lawmakers last year.
The investment, according to the state-driven organization, is estimated to be in the price range between Rs 2 lakh and 7.5 lakh per annum, which is, however, dependent upon the backhaul bandwidth usage and number of access points to be put into operation.
The proposal will help overcome network connectivity challenges in the country and is likely to offer a big leg-up to Modi’s Digital India umbrella programme that aims to bring mobile telephony penetration to 100% and Internet access for all.
The novel government-funded initiative, according to Shrivastava, can offer free Wi-Fi service across locations represented by parliamentarians to facilitate digital empowerment and the delivery of various electronic services to 1.25 billion Indians.
In addition, a large-scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country is one of the many goals of mega Digital India initiative.
Till now, the state-owned telco has implemented 2,500 Wi-Fi hotspots across more than 1,200 locations including historical places such as Varanasi ghats, Taj Mahal, Sarnath temple, Ajmer Sharif dargah and Konark temple.
