Lucknow, March 1 (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh, under the National Broadband Mission, has connected as many as 31,149 gram panchayats of the state with optical fibre.

According to an official spokesman, the state government has set a target to connect 58,194 gram panchayats in 75 districts of the state with optical fibre by December 31, 2022. A total of 14,100 gram panchayats will be connected to the internet in the next 60 days.

Under this mission, launched by the Government of India, 50 lakh km optical fibre cable is to be laid to ensure the availability of high-speed broadband service in the rural and remote areas of the state.

In addition, the tower density is set to be increased from 0.42 to 1.0 per 1,000 population, so that access to government schemes in rural areas can be facilitated.

Earlier, due to poor connectivity or no internet connection, children were unable to attend online classes but now the children of all 31,149 gram panchayats will not have to face this problem.

On the instructions of Chief Minister Adityanath, a state-level broadband committee has been set up under his chairmanship. In the meeting, it was decided to run the mission in three phases. In the first phase, 17,903 gram panchayats in UP East and 10,481 gram panchayats in UP West were provided broadband access by December 31, 2020.

Similarly, in the second phase, the target has been set by the officials of the IT and electronics department to provide internet access to 17,032 gram panchayats of UP East and 2,195 gram panchayats of UP West by March 31, 2021 (which will be extended to April 30). After this, the third phase will begin.

The National Broadband Mission was launched in 2019 by the Central government to set up large-scale digital infrastructure in rural India.