Government's ambitious National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project has been rechristened as 'BharatNet', which aims to connect 2.5 lakh village panchayats with broadband by 2016, Parliament was informed today.
"The government has proposed to provide broadband connectivity to 2,50,000 gram (village) panchayats under NOFN (renamed now BharatNet) project," Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed the Rajya Sabha.
The name was suggested by a committee on NOFN. The members of the committee included Former IT secretary J Satyanarayana, DoT officials A K Bhargava and V Umashankar, industry experts Kiran Karnik and Som Mittal among others.
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The NDA government has revised timelines for implementing the NOFN project. Government has set a target to roll out optical fibre network across 50,000 panchayats by March 2015, another 1 lakh by March 2016 and rest of the panchayats by end of December 2016.
The government has missed the target set under phase 1.
"Optical Fibre for broadband connectivity has reached 22,180 Gram Panchayats till date," Prasad said.
The committee has added new components to enhance broadband across country at an estimated outlay of about Rs 72,000 crore.
