98,569 Gram Panchayats yet be service ready under BharatNet: Dhotre

New Delhi: The much-touted BharatNet project, aimed at connecting 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats, still lags with as many as 98,569 Panchayats yet to be service ready, Parliament was told on Thursday.

The deadline to connect all the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats in the country and provide 100 Mbps connectivity to all the Panchayats is also set to be extended from the previous deadline of August 2021.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Sanjay Dhotre said: “So far, a total number of 1,51,431 Gram Panchayats (Including Block HQ) have been made Service Ready.”