7.5 lakh public Wi-Fi hotspots to be set up by end of 2018: Govt

New Delhi: In order to give a boost to digital connectivity across the Nation, Central Government has decided to set up around 7.5 lakh internet hotspots for public across the country by the end of 2108.

According to sources, the responsibility of the programme is to be distributed among the private operators like BSNL, Reliance Jio, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Airtel. The main aim of the assignment is to provide high-speed internet connectivity to the rural and semi-urban areas across the nation.

With an aim to provide digital connectivity to the rural areas the government has started laying optic fiber network in many Gram Panchayats across the nation.

As per latest reports, the government has successfully reached around 75,000 Gram Panchayats by now and aims to reach 1 lakh Gram Panchayats by the end of this year.

While in many countries, Wi-Fi is considered as chief element for the digital foundation of a nation but an apathetic growth is experienced in India with only 31,000 hotspots in 2016 in comparison to other digitally developed countries like US and UK which has nearly 98 lakh, and 56 lakh hotspots respectively.

Meanwhile, to carry out the Project, a high-level meeting was called by telecom ministry, involving key representatives from various state governments to discuss about the methodologies and ways to provide digital service to various sectors like education, health, rural development etc.

As per sources, the government aims to have around three Wi-Fi hotspots per Gram Panchayat providing 1GB of data usage per day.