The Central government's plan to provide broadband services in all villages of the country is likely to see an investment of Rs seven lakh crore with 90 percent of the contribution coming from industry players.
The likely investment under the National Broadband Mission (NBM) is to be catalysed largely by the industry, out of which contribution by the government through Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) is envisaged to be around 10 percent, approximately Rs 70,000 crore which will cover all the states in the country including the states of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh
Under NBM, the government envisages providing broadband access to all villages, including those in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh by 2022.
NBM is seen as an extension of the BharatNet project under which the government is working to provide broadband connectivity to all gram panchayats (GPs).
As of February 2020, a total of 1,36,693 GPs (including block headquarters) have been made service ready.
Public Wi-Fi hotspots at 25,000 rural telephone exchanges of BSNL are being provided. As of February 2020, a total of 24,289 Wi-Fi hotspots are installed and out of them, 23,787 are providing services.