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Public telephone service reaches 5.5 lakh villages |
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By: Agencies |
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Date:
2008-08-26 |
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Place: New Delhi |
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Of India's 5.94 lakh villages, 5.5 lakh now have telephone connections whether through satellite technology or conventional lines, and 30,500 villages have broadband cover, the government said yesterday.
The over-92 per cent rural connectivity has been provided by telecom the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) provided connections to 54,700 villages through the Village Public Telephones mission under the Bharat Nirman Programme, which aims to provide subsidised public telephone facility in rural India. The scheme covers all villages except those having a population of less than 100. Most of the villages covered are in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Nine million phone connections
New Delhi: More than nine million phone connections were added last month, taking the number of phone users in the country to some 333.84 million.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the overall tele-density in the country was 29.08 per cent at the end of July, as against 28.33 per cent a month before. It said the total wireless subscriber base stood at 296.08 million at the end of July. |
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