Govt’s another bait to Rural India – Subsidize the Broadband connection by 50%

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Yawn.

The Indian govt. has once again thrown another political bait to divert the attention from their dismal broadband performance:

Worried over missing the broadband addition target, the government is now planning to give sub sidy for new broadband connection in the rural parts of the country. The subsidy would be up to 50% of the total cost of setting the system by service providers. Also, running cost of internet in rural ar eas would be about half of those in the cities. These steps are being taken in a move to strengthen the e governance network as the government has miser ably failed on this front.

Read this blah:

E-governance is one of the key areas of concern for the UPA government. The government has not been able to achieve the desired level of efficiency in the project due to many reasons, including low penetration of internet in rural areas. In fact, the DIT could not utilise the money allocated in the last year’s budget and returned Rs 102 crore due to under utilisation.[source]

Last year, the Indian govt. announced usage of power distribution lines (i.e. powerbrand/power-line technology) to increase the adoption/distribution of broadband. No news about that!

Interestingly, India has managed to beat Nigeria in Broadband penetration! How cool is that?

Another bait: $2bn private-public partnership for rural India

pic: Orange Bread