The government is planning to offer a mobile phone to at least one member of a family which has completed 100 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2012, say news reports.
The government is planning to roll out ?Bharat Mobile? scheme under which preference would be given to women while distribution the mobile phone. Going forward, the government plans to invite telecom companies to bid for the project. The state governments will provide list of eligible citizens for each village to the operators. In turn, the operator will have to provide mobile phone and services to the user.
While the service will be given free of cost to the rural users, operators will get subsidy from the government for extending telecom services to users. The mobile phones will be distributed by the service providers in coordination with the district administration. The mobile phones will have authentication software to ensure that only the intended user would be able to access the services. Access to health records, land records and payment transfers would be enabled through such mobile phones.
