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Broadband connection to 50,000 villages this financial year: Ravi Shankar Prasad [Patna] [Times of India](Times of India Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) PATNA: Union communications and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday announced that 50,000 villages in the country would have broadband connection in the current financial year. Over 1.5 lakh more villages would be linked with the facility next year, he said. Laying the foundation stone of an incubation facility at the software technology park here, Prasad said the Centre proposes to have broadband connectivity in all the villages in the country to facilitate e-commerce, e-education and e-health in addition to e-governance. Prasad said he has directed the officials of IT department and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited to increase the number of business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in small towns. At present, there are about ten such BPOs at Patna. To expand the concept of information highway, the IT ministry will aim at setting up at least 200 BPOs in smaller towns, including Sasaram, Supaul, Buxar and Purnia. These centres would also get tax benefits, he said. Other towns in Madhya Pradesh and UP, like Sagar, Gorakhpur and Ghazipur have been identified for BPO centres. Several towns in Odisha and West Bengal will also have BPO centres as Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants IT to expand to eastern India as well. Prasad said India had huge potential of software exports. In 2013-14, software worth Rs2.73 lakh crore was exported from India against only Rs52 crore in 1992-93. Software exports from Bihar in the current financial year was worth Rs10 crore, he said, and directed the park director to reach the figure of at least Rs100 crore by the end of the financial year. IT ministry will open branches of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology at Muzaffarpur and Buxar in Bihar, announced. There were 107 affiliated centres of the institute and the Centre has decided to affiliate 400 more units, he said. The minister requested Bihar government to allot 50 acres of land for establishment of electronics cluster at Patna. Government of India will pay Rs50 crore for the land, he said. Electronic items like mobile phone sets, sim cards and chargers can be manufactured in these clusters. India imports electronic goods, including mobile phone sets, worth Rs6 lakh crore every year. If these clusters are opened, made in India cellphone sets would be available at cheaper rates, he said. Referring to his term as information and broadcasting minister in Vajpayee government, he said there were about a dozen news channels. "Now, there are over 650, but some of them spread 'nonsense'," he regretted. Speaking on the occasion, CM Jitan Ram Manjhi said all the district headquarters besides Rajgir and Bodh Gaya would have Wi-Fi zones like Patna where the state IT department has created a 20km long Wi-Fi zone, considered among the biggest ones in the world. IT parks are being set up at Bandar Bagicha and Dak Bungalow in the state capital. State IT minister Shahid Ali Khan said Bihar government would set up a Rs50-crore innovation centre at NIT Patna for which Rs25 crore matching grant from the Centre was needed. (c) 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited |