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10 Crore Rural Indians To Get Internet By December Next Year: Telecom Secretary

Investment into the government’s WiFi plan alone can create 10 million jobs in the coming years, said Sundararajan.

A man uses his mobile phone at a store on Dahanu Road in Kainad, Maharashtra, India. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
A man uses his mobile phone at a store on Dahanu Road in Kainad, Maharashtra, India. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

About 10 crore rural Indians will start getting internet in their homes by December 2018, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said in an interaction with BloombergQuint on the government’s Bharat Net project which aims to provide internet connectivity in rural India.

Sundararajan said 88,000 panchayats have already been connected under phase 1 of the project which aims to connect 100,000 panchayats by December-end. Investment into the government's WiFi plan alone can create 10 million jobs in the coming years, said Sundararajan.

Amid reports of job losses in the telecom sector, the telecom secretary said that while it is true there have been some job losses in the sector, many more will be created as well.

The Telecom Commission will go through the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Group to help the struggling operators, Sundararajan said. A final approval will come once the feedback sought on some of the issues and legal opinion is received, she said. It will then go to the cabinet for final approval.