The parliament was informed that the centre has installed Wi-Fi hotspots in 104,288 gram panchayats (GPs) (village blocks) and provided 213,834 Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) connections using BharatNet network as of February 28, 2022.
Devusinh Chauhan, Minister of State for Communications, informed that as of February 28, 2022, a total of 567,941 kilometres of optical fibre cable (OFC) has been laid while a total of 172,361 GPs (168,010 GPs on OFC and 4,351 GPs on satellite) have been made service ready in the country.
Meanwhile, as of December 31, 2021, a total of Rs 275.82 billion has been disbursed or utilised under BharatNet Project.
The BharatNet aims at covering 7,294 villages in aspirational districts in 10 states is currently under implementation. In addition, in a separate move, a mobile app has been developed for real-time monitoring of the BharatNet network. This is a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based monitoring system for capturing monitoring data at field level with smartphones. This move is aimed at proactively monitoring the BharatNet network has resulted in an upward trend in the revenue collection.
