Roll out of over 1 lakh IT centres to cover rural India by July next

New Delhi, Oct 7 (UNI) Having recently completed rollout of information technology-enabled centres in Haryana and Jharkhand, the Communications and Information Technology Ministry today said over one lakh such centres would be operational by July next to provide IT footprint across six lakh villages of the country.

Also having selected agencies for executing the massive project, it said final number of such centres could be over 1.13 lakh, the Ministry said.

Besides Haryana and Jharkhand, the rollout was earlier completed in West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Orissa, Meghalaya and Tripura, while it is being made operational in Gujarat, the Ministry added.

As many as 17,909 centres are proposed in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 9,232 in Madhya Pradesh, 8,558 in Orissa, 8,463 in Bihar and 6,626 in Rajasthan.

Each centre is equipped with computer, printer and scanner, and along with wireless connectivity, it becomes the backbone for front-end delivery points for government, private and social sector services to rural people in an integrated manner.

Installation of additional equipment for edutainment, telemedicine and projection systems is also being made available to such centres, the Ministry said.

Being implemented through a public private partnership, the Rs 5,742 crore project is being funded by the Centre and the State Governments with investment of Rs 856 crore and Rs 793 crore, respectively, while the balance is being mobilised by private sector.

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