A Raja, the Minister of Communication and Information Technology announced that about one lakh broadband enabled service centres will come up in the country by March, 2008 at a total cost of INR 5,400 crore.

One centre will come up for every six villages with all e-governance services. Central government has allocated INR 1,600 crore to set up the service centres and rest by the private sector under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. This declaration was made at the eIndia 2007 Conference, organized by Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) on July 31, 2007. The Minister said that for implementation of e-governance projects, government on its part is trying to provide basic infrastructure including Internet, window facilitation center and last mile connectivity for implementation of e-governance, but participation of private sector and citizens is a key factor for providing totally transparent services to the public.

South Asia