Parliament Parliamentary Committee
Only 30% of Gram Panchayats have functional BharatNet connections, Standing Committee finds
The Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology examined the performance of schemes under Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN), a fund aimed at providing telecom services in rural, remote, and underserved areas.
Who it concerns: Ministry of Communications and Information Technology; Public and Private sector entities involved in telecom infrastructure; Citizens in rural, remote, border, and north-eastern regions.
What the committee found
- BharatNet: Only 30% of Gram Panchayats had functional connections as of Feb 2026; Committee recommended state-wise audits, increasing household connections, and timely tendering.
- Security-sensitive areas: 93% of towers in LWE areas and 42% in border outposts commissioned; Committee recommended logistical/security support and inter-ministry coordination for clearances.
- Remote areas: 61% of towers commissioned under 4G saturation project and 81% under Aspirational Districts scheme; Committee recommended strengthening field implementation and acting on audit findings regarding coverage gaps and weak signals.
- North-Eastern regions: 68% of planned 2G towers installed; Committee recommended infrastructure sharing among operators and an outcome-based framework with service quality benchmarks.
- PSU Role: Committee noted varying performance of PSUs like BSNL and ITI; recommended strengthening pre-project appraisal, contractual obligations, and performance-linked incentives.
- R&D: Committee recommended translating TTDF-funded research into deployable solutions, expanding rural pilots, and linking innovations with BharatNet.
Also in the document
- As of February 2026, only 30% of Gram Panchayats had a functional BharatNet connection.
- Only 42% of planned 4G mobile towers in border outposts had been commissioned as of February 2026.
- Third-party audits identified issues such as coverage gaps, weak signal strength, and duplicate infrastructure in mobile connectivity projects.
How this was written
An AI model running on our own computer read the government document and wrote this summary. No person has checked it.
✓ Figures checked. Every number in this summary was found in the document by an automated check.
That check compares numbers only. It cannot confirm that the wording says what the document says — so the original document is always the authority.
The original document
Parliamentary Standing Committee reports (via PRS Legislative Research)
Committee report · Ref. review-of-schemes-projects-under-digital-bharat-nidhi
Read it here
Discussion
No one has discussed this document yet.