Rs 20,000 crore to be spent on laying FoC to connect 2.5 lakh

The Centre will spend Rs 20,000 crores to lay fibre optic cables (FoC) to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats of the country to provide a number of online services to the people.
"In next one year, we are spending around Rs 20,000 crores to ensure fibre optic cables are laid upto every 2,50,000 grams panchayats of the country", Minister of State for Communication & Information Technology Kruparani Killi said here today.
"It will ensure that a large number of online services in the fields of agriculture, education, health will be available to rural India in real time", she said.
Killi only 3 percent of the families in the country are having computers at their homes and, therefore, for providing online services like booking of railway tickets, payment of various types of bills, the government has established 100,000 common service centres where common people can go and avail such services.

Dr Killi further said that at the end of this year, nearly one crore families would use mobile phones and every month pay their bills through it.