Source: The Sangai Express
New Delhi, September 12:
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will provide telephone connection to 876 villages of Manipur by November 2007 under Bharat Nirman Programme, which was launched by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on December 16 last, reports Manipur Information Centre.
The Centre is targeting to provide every Indian Village with telephone facility.
Currently, as many as 66,822 villages in the country are without telephone connection.
Out of 876 villages having no telephone connection in Manipur; 234 villages are in Senapati District, 225 in Churachandpur District, 179 in Ukhrul District, 107 in Tamenglong District, 69 in Imphal East and West Districts including Jiribam Sub-division, 45 in Chandel District, 12 in Thoubal District and 5 in Bishnupur District.
A source from the Ministry stated that so far 197 villages out of the targeted villages in Manipur had been given telephone connection.
Sixty two villages in Ukhrul District, 56 in Senapati District, 30 in Churachandpur District, 21 in Tamenglong District, 17 in Chandel District, 6 in Thoubal District, 4 in Imphal East and West Districts including Jiribam and 1 in Bishnupur District got telephone connection under the Bharat Nirman programme.
Mention may be made that the Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh launched the Rs.1,74,000 crore 'Bharat Nirman Programme' on December 16 last year with an aim at building rural infrastructure and giving a new deal to rural India.
The Bharat Nirman which was a four-year programme targeted at achieving identified goals in six selected areas of rural infrastructure namely irrigation, water supply, housing, roads, telephony and electrification.
Telephone connectivity constitutes an important part of the effort to upgrade the rural infrastructure.
Under the Bharat Nirman programme, the Centre has ensured that 66,822 revenue villages in the country, which have not yet been provided with a Village Public Telephone (VPT), shall be covered by November 2007.Out of these villages, connectivity in 14,183 remote and far-flung villages will be provided through digital satellite phone terminals.
Under the programme; 8931 villages in Assam, 1957 in Meghalaya, 646 in Arunachal Pradesh, 96 in Mizoram, 76 in Tripura and 28 in Nagaland were to be covered.