Data consumption on Common Service Centre nearly doubled in rural areas: Govt

The consumption of data in rural India on the network of Common Service Centre (CSC), a special purpose vehicle of the government, jumped nearly 100% within a month - especially during the lockdown period, a top government official said here on Sunday.

"Major increase in data consumption witnessed ever since country-wide lockdown announced by the government," CSC SPV Chief Executive Officer Dinesh Tyagi said.

CSC e-Governance Services India, which holds the licence for providing internet services, recorded an increase in data consumption to 4.7 terabyte (TB) as on March 30 from 2.7 TB on March 10.

As per the growth trend, data consumption on the CSC SPV network is estimated to have increased by close to 100% till date, Tyagi said.

CSC is a special purpose vehicle set up by the Ministry of Electronics and IT, to monitor implement common service centres which deliver various government services. The government also roped CSC to manage and support BharatNet programme aimed to provide broadband facility to rural India.

CSC also provides wifi hotspot in around 25,000 gram panchayats in the name of CSC Wi-fi Choupal services.

"Besides, the surge of data consumption in rural areas, there has been a high demand of FTTH (Fiber to Home). In the month of March 20, more than 3 lakh subscribers registered across 50,000 Gram Panchayats for FTTH," Tyagi said.

According to the CSC data, Wi-Fi Choupal has more than 12 lakh registered subscribers who use this as a supplement to their mobile connection.

"This clearly indicates the high appetite of internet data in rural areas, which in future can be pivotal in bridging Digital Divide and If nurtured with regular organic feed of educational and informational content rural India can be Digitally Empowered and Transformed," Tyagi noted.

There are more than 60 crore internet users in India and out of this about 29 crore are in rural areas. The government is implementing BharatNet project with a view to provide broadband facility to every rural household.