Each and every village of India would be provided with telecom connectivity in the next 12 months, Union Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia announced on Saturday.
He said special funds have been sanctioned by the Cabinet for the purpose and he has himself been monitoring the progress of work every week.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, the Union Minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), said prime minister Narendra Modi was committed to 100 per cent saturation.
“We have identified around 24,000 villages in the country that still need saturation in terms of telecom connection,” the minister said, adding that a special scheme to reach all these villages has already been rolled out along with funds sanctioned for the purpose.
Areas in the northeastern states are among these villages, and strategies are being worked out to reach these places, the minister said.
He said provisions of the new telecom Act enable setting up required infrastructure and mixed technologies, like V-sat and satellite, are being utilized with the “target of cent per cent saturation within 12 months”.
“I have been monitoring the work on a weekly basis, and 13,000-14,000 of these villages have also been covered,” he was quoted as saying in the reports.
Scindia also spoke about the allocations for northeastern states in the 2024-25 Union Budget.
“For the past 75 years, North East was treated as an orphan. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to make the region the engine of growth,” the minister claimed.
Special funds of about Rs 11,000 crore have been earmarked for flood management in Assam and Sikkim, and 100 new branches of India Post Payments Bank will come up in the region as per provisions of the budget.
Scindia claimed that the region would benefit from the different schemes for women, farmers, youth and economically weaker sections as provided in the budget.
He also asserted that the importance given to the region can be gauged from increased monetary allocation to the DoNER ministry, more funds coming through the devolution of central taxes and investment in developing connectivity infrastructure.
