‘Government paid Rs 22.31 crore for data connectivity under e-gram scheme’

The Gujarat government paid Rs 22.31 crore to Bharti Airtel Ltd in the past two years for providing data connectivity to the state government’s panchayat e-gram scheme, the state legislature was informed on Friday.

Airtel has been providing 51 MBPS (megabits per second) of data connectivity for the project, the state government said in a written reply to a question by Congress MLA from Mangrol, Babubhai Vaja.

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The e-gram project aims to bridge the digital gap between urban and rural Gujarat with the help of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) and promotes village panchayat as the delivery point of e-services for various government departments.

In 2019, the telecom firm was paid Rs 13.12 crore as per the tie-up, while Rs 9.19 crore was paid in 2020, the reply stated.