Commencement of the second phase of BharatNet, got announced today by Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha, along with Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
The project has an investment of Rs.31,000 crore and a mandate to provide high-speed broadband to all panchayats by March 2019.
Further, Reliance Jio has been the highest advance subscription fee payer of Rs.13 crore, to provide broadband services at 30,000 village panchayats,and it has given commitment to buy bandwidth in every panchayat from the government as it expands the project.
Moreover in the second phase, the government will lay down optical fibre network across 1.5 lakh village panchayats.