Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday virtually inaugurated a project to lay optical fibre cable under BharatNet scheme at an estimated cost of ₹1,627.83 crore. Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation (TANFINET – a special purpose vehicle) will implement the project which aims at providing 1 Gbps bandwidth connectivity to all 12,525 village panchayats in the State.
“The project aims to provide digital services, e-education, telemedicine and triple-play services to all village panchayats in the State at affordable cost. The project would help internet services reach government offices, schools, colleges and commercial establishments and thereby would also help in government schemes reaching the people. It would also lead to creation of more employment in rural areas and thereby economic development in those areas,” an official release said.
To implement the project, four packages - A, B, C & D - were formed. Chengalpattu, Chennai, Kancheepuram, Krishnagiri, Ranipet, Tirupattur, Tiruvallur, Tiruvannamalai and Vellore districts would be covered in A package, while package B would cover Ariyalur, Cuddalore, Erode, Dharmapuri, Kallakurichi, Perambalur, Salem, the Nilgiris and Villupuram districts.
Component C would cover Coimbatore, Karur, Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam, Namakkal, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruchi, Tiruppur and Tiruvarur districts and D would cover Dindigul, Kanniyakumari, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Tenkasi, Theni, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar districts. Minister for Information Technology T. Mano Thangaraj, Chief Secretary V. Irai Anbu and senior officials were present on the occasion.
