BHOPAL: Union minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad unfolded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 'digital India' dream, here on Monday afternoon. Prasad claimed that to bridge the gap between digital India and IT deprived rural areas, the Union government targets joining 50,000 villages with broadband connectivity by the end of this fiscal year.

By 2015-16, another one lakh hamlets will be linked and yet another one lakh rural habitations by 2016-17. “This is our Bharat Jodo Abhiyan(Unite India Movement) to take the Wi-Fi connection to our villages,” Prasad who was in Madhya Pradesh to lay the foundation stone of the country’s first two electronic manufacturing clusters – one in Jabalpur and another in Bhopal – on Monday.

He argued that the Modi government will soon bring a new BPO policy to include the youth of small towns in business process outsourcing jobs. Prasad justified that in IT hubs like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai there are youths from small towns of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar who work in BPO offices. The new BPO policy will ensure that this young crowd does not have to leave their states in search of employment.

“The calculation is simple. It is IT (India’s talent) + IT (information technology) = IT (India tomorrow),” the Union minister said. Prasad explained that 90 crore mobile phones are being used in the country along with the SIM cards and smart cards and yet none of it is manufactured here. “We import $100 billion of electronics which is to soon become $ 400 billion and the country would pay more than we do for petrol. This is why a meeting of all IT secretaries of states was called and letters reached the chief ministers,” he explained.

Prasad announced that Rs 38 crores would be given by the Centre to set-up the two manufacturing clusters. In addition, any company that starts producing electronics and applies to the Centre will get a support with 20 per cent of the installation costs. He invited investors to manufacture solar lamps, computers, software, LED lights and other electronics equipment for the defence sector.

“The Modi government has agreed to 49% foreign direct investment in defence manufacturing. And 60 per cent of these defence equipment are essentially electronic goods. We have to start manufacturing electronics for our defence machinery. The summary of it all is to Make in India – invest and manufacture here,” he added.