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Rajya Sabha
The Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, has informed the Rajya Sabha today that the Government has prepared a plan to connect all the six lakh plus villages by telephone within two years. As on 30.6.2005, 5,29,377 villages have been provided with Village Panchayat Telephones (VPTs) and the remaining 57,071 villages will be provided VPTs by November, 2007 with support from Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. This excludes villages lying in thick forest, having less than 100 population, etc. The estimated support from USO Fund for VPTs will be around Rs. 451 crore, he said.
The Minister further informed the House that the goal of providing VPTs is to provide public access to all the villages in the country by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The target of 250 million lines, by the year 2007, is for individual connections from all the telecom operators. Of this, around 180-200 millions are expected to be mobile phones. The VPT connections will be counted towards this target. Dr. Ahmad further said that the progress of installation of VPTs in 66,822 unconnected villages is being closely monitored as a component of "Bharat Nirman". The progress on targets of 250 million individual connections by the year 2007 is also being reviewed periodically.
Dr. Ahmad further said that the number of Internet communication is also expected to be more than triple to 18 million from 5.45 million over the same period. Broadband Policy 2004 envisages 18 million Internet subscribers by the year 2007, he said.
The above information was given by Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, in a written reply to the question by Shri Jesudasu Seelam and Dr. T. Subbarami Reddy.
RM/AMA – 040805 Internet USQ 1132
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