DoT, NABARD to provide high-speed broadband for digital empowerment in rural areas

New Delhi, March 27 (IANS) The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on Thursday signed an MoU for digital empowerment in rural areas across the country.

The objective of the MoU is to drive rural development in institutions supported by NABARD, by providing access to digital services, digital governance and promoting a digital economy through high-speed broadband connectivity under BharatNet programme.

NABARD will share information including geo-coordinates and contact details of institutions and Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN) under DoT will share geo-coordinates of BharatNet point of presence (PoP) locations in gram panchayats (GPs), from where high-speed broadband connectivity to be extended to rural institutions/enterprises.

“Both parties will share digital content (audio/video/text) related to their schemes and projects with each other. They will also share information on their digital services/citizen-centric applications/portals/e-governance platforms for further integration and dissemination of information,” according to the Ministry of Communications.

They will collaborate on awareness programs and capacity-building measures for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and rural institutions.

Both DBN and NABARD will promote each other's efforts to enable a digital economy by leveraging high-speed broadband connectivity using BharatNet. NABARD will promote the inclusion of ICT infrastructure, including broadband access support to institutions under their schemes and projects.

DBN has been instrumental in enabling high-speed broadband and mobile connections across gram panchayats and villages in the country.

This collaboration, through high-speed broadband connectivity under BharatNet will further provide digital impetus to the institutions such as Primary Agriculture Co-operative credit societies, etc. supported and computerised by NABARD.

According to the government, as many as 2.18 lakh gram panchayats out of the total 2.68 lakh in the country have been made service-ready for providing high-speed internet services under the BharatNet project.

The BharatNet project is being implemented by DoT in a phased manner to provide broadband services to all gram panchayats in the country.

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