About 700,000 km optical fibre to be laid under NOFN: Prasad

Govt has targeted roll out of OFC network for high speed broadband across 50,000 villages by this fiscal end

The government will lay about 700,000 kilometres of optical fibre network to connect all village panchayats by high-speed broadband services by 2016, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

"We are laying down optical fibre in all gram (village) panchayats. PM is very keen on this project. PM has said Ravi ensure that it is done by end of 2016. We have to lay 700,000 kilometre of OFC. We have got about a million kilometer done in last 25 years," Prasad said while speaking at a function organised by Chase India.

Government has set a target to roll out OFC network for high speed broadband services across 50,000 village panchayat by end of this financial year, 1 lakh by March 2016 and another 1 lakh by end of 2016.

Prasad said that the country is electronically and telephonically well connected but there is need for digital connectivity so that services are delivered to people on demand besides empowering them.

The Minister said the government wants to create new hubs of Information technology services which at the moment are limited to only few cities.

"I want BPOs (business process outsourcing) to be opened up in small and mofussil towns of country. I have asked my officers to come up with incentive driven scheme so that BPOs can be opened in places like Deoria, Gorakhpur, Balia, Seetamarhi, Samastipur, Trichy in Tamil Nadu and Ahmednagar in Maharashtra," Prasad said.

He said the spread of digital infrastructure will lead to explosion of e-commerce, e-entertainment and host of other services.

"We want a series of dialogues to help create a platform for interaction between Government and Industry. Through Digital India conclave initiative our effort is to create a roadmap for turning the dream of Digital India into reality," Chase India Director Nitin Mantri said.