PUDUCHERRY:The Union Territory of Puducherry is one of the first to get all the 98 gram panchayats in three blocks of Villianur, Ariyankuppam and Karaikal to have been connected with high speed rural broadband facility on optical fibre cable link.
This project was taken up under Digital India programme at an outlay of about Rs 3.5 crore and executed in about six months, said N Haribabu, CGM(Project II), BBNL, Tamil Nadu.
It was implemented by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) under the Ministry of Communication and IT and executed by Railtel Corporation with the support of the UT Government.
This connectivity would facilitate delivery of citizen-centric services on real time basis at a faster speed. National Optical Fibre Network was conceptualised by the Govt of India in the year 2012. The Project is funded from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) at a cost of about Rs 20,000 crore connecting 2.5 lakh gram panchayats spread across the country.
The three gram panchayats namely Ariyankuppam East, Manapet and Korkadu were connected through video conference to the Indira Gandhi International Stadium, New Delhi from where the Prime Minister launched the Digital India Week on July 1. The live programme telecast over the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) was viewed by the audience numbering about 50 at each gram panchayats.
Programme details and the Pamphlets about NOFN and the benefits were distributed among the public.
Various e-Commerce applications namely railway booking, bus ticket booking, online shopping portals etc and the advantages and convenience have been explained to the citizens.