BharatNet, the pan-India data connectivity programme, had connected 1.29 lakh Gram Panchayats with optical fibre, said Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi on Saturday (30 November)

The government had allocated and disbursed Rs 20,431 crore for the BharatNet project, Prasad tweeted. It would connect all the 2.50 lakh Gram Panchayats with high-speed broadband network, he added.

The project is being executed in two phases.

Termed as one of the largest infrastructure projects globally that aims to digitally connect 250 thousand villages (gram panchayats) and bring them onto the Digital India bandwagon, the project was launched in 2012 during the previous Congress government.

Since then it has missed many deadlines. The phase one was completed in January 2018 with 1 lakh villages connected with high-speed broadband.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)