Key Points

The central government had launched an ambitious BharatNet programme to connect the villages. The primary objective is to provide unrestricted access to broadband connectivity to all telecom service providers.

"Government of India is spending Rs 140,000 to connect every gram panchayat with 1 gigabit per second connectivity. As we speak, roughly 50,000 panchayats have 1 gigabit per second connectivity with an SLA of more than 98 per cent," the secretary said, speaking at the CII Global Capability Centers (GCCs) Summit.

"There's a long way to go, and we hope that within 3 years we will have all the village panchayats, which is roughly about 2.5 lakhs, plus the villages associated with it, which is roughly about 6 lakh, will get connected to a high-speed fibre network," the secretary said.

Speaking about GCC infrastructure in India, the telecom secretary said enablers of GCC are very well established in India, referring to the talent pool.

"Be it connectivity, the capability to innovate, the rule of law, or strong IPR protections. All these things make India a very attractive destination," the secretary continued.

Connecting telecom with GCCs, he said internet data costs in India is very low in India against the global average. Data costs are a key component of GCCs.

"We are about 9 cents per GB... USD 2.6 is the global average," the secretary said.

"India saw one of the largest and fastest 5G expansions. We covered over 99 per cent of the districts. Only there are only two districts in the country where there is no 5G," he added.

Further, the secretary put special emphasise on security aspects, noting that India is amongst the top nations where the cybersecurity infrastructure, policies, response mechanisms, mitigations are top class.

Going by definition, GCCs are offshore facilities set up by multinational corporations to manage a variety of business functions and processes for their parent organisations.

- ANI