Over Rs 110 bn invested in BharatNet, but functional internet still a dream

How well has the Narendra Modi government’s flagship ‘Digital India’ scheme, the BharatNet project, performed over the last four years?

Over Rs 110 billion has been poured in so far, but the programme’s goal of functional internet seems a distant dream. According to latest internal government data seen by The Wire, less than 2.5 per cent of India’s 250,000 village panchayats have commercial broadband connections.

Under the Digital India scheme approved by the cabinet in August 2014, the NDA-II government had set a target of providing broadband connections to all 250,000 village panchayats by December 2016.

“2,50,000 village panchayats would be covered under the