Centre, Jharkhand Sign ₹1,684 Crore BharatNet Pact for Rural Broadband
Digital Bharat Nidhi, DoT, the Jharkhand government, JDICL, BSNL and JCNL signed an agreement in New Delhi to roll out the amended BharatNet programme in Jharkhand with ₹1,684 crore in central support.
An agreement to implement the amended BharatNet programme in Jharkhand was signed at Sanchar Bhawan in New Delhi, bringing the state's rural broadband upgrade under a state-led model with central financial backing of ₹1,684 crore.
The pact was signed between Digital Bharat Nidhi under the Department of Telecommunications, the Government of Jharkhand, Jharkhand Digital Infrastructure Corporation Limited (JDICL), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Jharkhand Communication Network Limited (JCNL).
The ceremony was attended by Shyamal Misra, Administrator of Digital Bharat Nidhi, and Papa Sudhakara Rao, Director (Enterprise Business) at BSNL, along with senior officers from the Department of Telecommunications and BSNL. The agreement was signed by Dinesh Kumar Garg, Deputy Director General (ABP Implementation-I) at DoT, and Pooja Singhal, Secretary of Jharkhand's Department of IT and e-Governance.
Under the programme in the state, work will be carried out through a new special purpose vehicle, JDICL. The total scope covers 4,395 gram panchayats, including the upgrade of 4,387 gram panchayats from linear to ring topology to improve network resilience, and the addition of eight newly created gram panchayats. A further 26,777 villages are to receive connectivity on a demand basis.
The Union Cabinet approved the amended BharatNet programme on 4 August 2023, with the aim of upgrading, consolidating and expanding the existing network to deliver robust, future-ready broadband to all gram panchayats and villages on demand.
The initiative is expected to support more than four lakh rural home fibre connections with subsidy assistance from the Centre, and to improve the delivery of digital services such as e-governance, online education, telemedicine, digital payments and other citizen-centric services in rural and remote parts of the state.
Digital Bharat Nidhi, earlier known as the Universal Service Obligation Fund, was set up under the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act, 2003 with effect from 1 April 2002, and became DBN under the Telecommunications Act, 2023. It functions as an attached office of the Department of Telecommunications and supports universal service by promoting access to telecom services in underserved rural, remote and urban areas. Its schemes include BharatNet, the 4G saturation project, and mobile service projects in aspirational districts, left-wing extremism areas, Himalayan and border areas, islands and the north-eastern region.