Maharashtra Minister for
Information Technology Satej Patil on Tuesday demanded additional funds from the Centre for completion of BharatNet-2 project for providing digital connectivity in remote areas of the state.
He put forward the demand while participating in a digital interaction with Union Minister for Electronics & Information and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad along with his counterparts from other states.
Patil said, Maharashtra is doing extremely well in implementing BharatNet-2 programme but we need financial help and guidance from the Centre. I would like to request the Centre to release funds for the same on priority.
The ambitious programme aims to connect 1.25 lakh gram panchayats with fibre-network driven Internet services.
Maharashtra is building Mumbai as the financial technology capital (of India). We will expedite the process in the near future as it is right time to attract global eyeballs, he said.
The minister also sought an Aadhaar-enabled payment system to provide financial assistance to people residing in remote areas.
During the interaction, Patil underlined the importance of virtual learning but said some applications used for this purpose are not safe in terms of privacy.
Virtual learning will be ubiquitous in the future. We have observed some security issues in the apps currently being used by the education sector.
"The government should share guidelines about the usage of such apps and recommend a few tools that the government feels are appropriate, Patil said.
It will be great if we can devise a Make in India tool for the same. All government and zilla parishad schools should get such a facility at reasonable cost or for free, he said.
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