 agencies
NEW DELHI, Dec 16: Communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that public sector telecom units BSNL and BBNL had connected over 100,000 households every month, leading to rise in data consumption to over 120 GB per month.
"The combined network of BSNL and BBNL today is adding more than 1,00,000 household connections every month. Imagine now, in rural areas having more than 1,00,000 household connections every month, providing good bandwidth providing good connectivity. Today the data consumption in these connections is close to 120 GB per month," he said in Lok Sabha on Friday.
"So, this new model where we have taken the local village entrepreneurs on board and making sure that the village economy grows using the infrastructure, which is being provided, I think this model is very good, it is progressing very rapidly and I'm sure in coming years, coming months honorable member will see the results," he said in response to a question from the Opposition. Vaishnaw added that the government's commitment towards providing excellent connectivity to North East was demonstrated through multiple projects.
"First, a project was taken up worth about ?800 crore rupees for providing connectivity along the highways and recently, entire north-eastern villages which are uncovered so far, a complete 4G saturation package has been approved. This package is worth ?26,000 crore and this entire package is going to cover close to 24-25,000 villages which were yet to get complete adequate 4G coverage," he said.
The minister added that states like Odisha which had a significant part of the state uncovered, north-eastern part, parts of Himachal Pradesh, parts of Jammu and Kashmir, which are mostly the far flung areas were getting covered under the saturation program which was progressing very well.
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