The government on Wednesday (20 July) informed the Parliament that out of the 5.72 lakh inhabited villages in the country, around 5.72 lakh villages are covered under the mobile coverage.

"Mobile connectivity is extended by the Government and the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in a phased manner in the uncovered villages of the country," Union Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said In a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

"Presently, there are 23,54,667 Base Transceiver Stations (2G/3G/4G) of Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in the country," he said.

"As per the data provided by TSPs and field units of the Department of Telecommunications, out of 5,97,618 inhabited villages (as per census 2011) in the country, 5,72,551 villages are covered with mobile coverage and 25,067 villages are identified as mobile uncovered villages as on 31.12.2020," the minister said.

He said that for providing mobile services in uncovered villages of the country, the government, with funding from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), has approved Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for North Eastern Region (NER), Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected area schemes, aspirational districts schemes, comprehensive telecom development plan for Islands, etc.

Referring to the BharatNet project of the government, the minister said that the programme is implemented in a phased manner to provide broadband connectivity to all Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the country.

"The infrastructure created under BharatNet project can be utilized by Service providers, for provisioning of broadband/internet services," he added.

The scope of BharatNet has been recently extended up to all inhabited villages beyond gram panchayats in the country with the timeline as 2025, the minister said.

mobile coverage

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