The Andhra Pradesh government plans to make available a 10-15 Mbps broadband connection to each household at a price of about Rs 150 per month within a year, if the state’s proposal gets an official from the Department of Telecommunications.
They also plan to provide 100 Mbps to one Gbps connection to business enterprises on demand. “The state government has sent a preliminary feasibility proposal to the Ministry of Communication and Technology and will be forwarding a detailed project report by March if our proposal gets a go ahead from the Union government,” J Satyanarayana, Advisor, and Information Technology to Andhra Pradesh government, told Deccan Herald here on Monday.
The state government which is planning to provide online public services that include Aadhar linkage, loan waiver, irrigation facilities, skill development and education hopes to complete the Rs 6,000 project in 30 months.
The state government is confident that it would get final approval from the government in March as the project is in consonance with the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project.
“The new state of Andhra Pradesh requires a big impetus to attract private enterprise; high speed optical-fibre connectivity will be an additional attraction for the investors,” IT minister Palle Raghunatha Reddy said.
In anticipation of central assistance, the state government has already announced a draft plan to develop 12, 918 village panchayats and 3, 465 municipal wards as smart entities during first phase.
In all 16,383 panchayats and wards will be connected with broadband optical fibre internet service under the smart village programme.
Details of each village will be kept available in www.smart.ap.gov.in portal. As per the action plan district collectors, Mandal Praja Parishat presidents, and sarpanches will help implement the smart plan at each level.