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Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
When it comes to flagship schemes by the government to boost connectivity and create a robust Wi-Fi broadband environment in the deepest parts of the country, BharatNet comes to mind. In the latest turn of events, the government has been ideating upon the viability gap funding (VGF) for the BharatNet programme to give it a further stimulus in the rural regions. The VGF will amount to Rs 29,430 crore and will cover 3,60,000 villages in 16 states.
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Leveraging Public-Private Partnership
The government has decided to leverage the public-private partnership model for the rollout of BharatNet in these 16 states. This means the launch, maintenance, operation, utilisation will be able to happen efficiently and faster. This will also allow the centre to bring these e-services to the grassroots population in a more accelerated manner.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) had criticised the DoT for not being able to prepare Cabinet Note on the PPP modelling for the rollout of the rural broadband service. It’s worthy to note that BharatNet would help in bridging the rural-urban divide, and it will bring much-needed services to the rural untapped population. Additionally, this service will have multiple use cases like education, health, e-governance, skill development, telemedicine, among many.
When it comes to revenue, BharatNet would be able to depend on the proliferation of broadband connections to individuals & institutions, sale of dark fibre, Fiberization of mobile towers, e-commerce etc., to rake in some revenue.
