Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 12: Minister of State for Power, Mohammad Ashraf Mir today informed the Upper House that internet services in the rural areas are going to improve considerably with the extension of optical fiber network upto the Gram Panchayats under Bharat Net programme.
The Minister was replying to a Calling Attention Notice by Rani Gargi Bloweria regarding non availability of internet services in rural and far flung areas.
The Minister said that the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India has given licenses to several Internet Service Providers (ISP) viz BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance etc to provide internet services in Jammu and Kashmir.
“All these ISPs were being governed by an MoU signed between them and the Union Government”, the Minister said and added State IT Department under “Digital India programme” of the Union Government is in the process of setting up an optical fiber network up to Gram Panchayat level under Bharat Net scheme which would considerably improve connectivity even in rural areas.
Regarding poor internet services in urban areas, the Minister said that Information Technology Department of the State Government in consultation with Department of Electronics and Information Technology, GoI has rolled out 1109 Community Service Centres (CSC)/ Khidmat Centres in the State. These Khidmat Centres are equipped with computer infrastructure to facilitate common public in information technology related activities especially for filling online admission, recruitment forms and other services, he added.
He further informed that State IT Department in consultation with Union Government has taken slew of measures for providing reliable internet services in rural and far flung areas as well as in urban areas by way of setting more CSCs which will help rural masses, especially students and unemployed youth for filing online admissions, recruitment forms and other internet based services, he added.
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