'All villages to be connected by optical fibres'
Under the government's Digital India Programme, all 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats will be connected through Optical Fibre Network by December 2018. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the National Optical Fibre Network project, renamed as BharatNet, was one of the pillars of the programme. This aims to provide broadband connectivity by all categories of service providers on a non-discriminatory basis.