“Today close to 850 million people have access to internet. But that is not enough. We will augment it with investment of $13 billion to make sure high quality broadband internet reaches each and every corner of this country,” he said, speaking at the valedictory Session of G20 Conference on Crime and Security in the age of NFTs, AI and Metaverse.
The government has so far invested about $8.5 billion in the rural internet connectivity scheme that aims to provide fast broadband internet connectivity to all the six lakh villages in the country.
Apart from the investment in BharatNet, the government will also invest more to improve 4G connectivity in areas where it may not make much economic sense for private companies to invest, he said.
The growth that will be led by such investments is important for societies like India, he said.
Technology, Vaishnaw said, should not be cornered by a few companies in fast evolving societies like India.
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“In no case, technology should be cornered by a single or a handful of technologies. Second, the poorest of the poor should have the same access to technology as the person that has more resources,” he said.Technology should encompass day to day areas of everyday life and that is why the central government decided to approach it with the mindset of developing digital public infrastructure, Vaishnaw said.
The public private partnership approach meant that the core platform of major digital technologies would be developed using public funds.
