As a part of the Centre's initiative of transforming India into digital India, around 1,50,000 gram panchayats will be connected through optical fiber under the national fiber optics programme, Union Minister for Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Kolkata on Tuesday. He was speaking at a programme organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) at a city hotel. He said that the project would be completed by the middle of 2018. According to the minister, one lakh gram panchayats have already been connected by optical fiber. "Indian digital economy is expected to reach $ one trillion in the next 5 to 7 years.
The current size of the digital economy is around $400 billion now. It includes IT, automation, ITES, cyber security, e-com and digital payments," Prasad said.
He also said that six crore families in India will be enabled in the coming three years to become digitally literate under the digital literacy programme. He said that as many as 72 mobile manufacturing factories have come up in India in the last three years. The minister also claimed that Aadhaar cards may be proven as extremely handy to check the infiltrators as they would be tracked by this card. He also said that Aadhaar card is an important instrument for removing corruption prevalent in the country. The linking of Jan Dhan accounts with Aadhaar and mobile number has enabled the Centre to direct transfer subsidies to the beneficiary's bank account.