BSNL, the government telecom company of India, has started its first rural broadband kiosk at village Savlaj in Sangli District of Maharashtra recently. The scheme is titled Wire-Line Broadband Connectivity to Rural and Remote Areas.
The project is aimed at making information technology work to the advantage of the villagers. It covers setting up of 30,000 such rural broadband kiosks across the country in the next 3 years. The rural Broadband kiosks allow full triple play (voice, video and data) services to the rural customers.
Besides internet surfing, the kiosks will offer various value added services to the rural public in form of utility bill payments, railway ticketing, mobile handsets content download etc. Additionally, services of local interest such as agricultural trading, education on crops, micro finance etc will be unique feature of each kiosk. These kiosks shall be established as entertainment and information dissemination hub for the villagers. BSNL plans to engage franchisees at the local level for this purpose.
USO fund of Department of Telecommunications is supporting the project in form of subsidy for setting up and operating these kiosks. USO fund shall extend a quarterly subsidy of Rs. 20,000 for a period of 3 years for operating these kiosks.
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