Only over a third of the population in developing countries, including India, uses the Internet, against 82 per cent in the developed world, says a UN report.

The report, ‘Millennium Development Goals 2015’, globally released on Wednesday, says that the digital divide between the rich and poor is growing despite mobile and internet penetration growing exponentially, with the highest number of excluded people in rural areas of the least developed countries (LDCs).

The proportion of population covered by a 2G mobile cellular network grew from 58 per cent in 2001 to 95 per cent in 2015. Internet penetration has grown from just over 6 per cent of the world’s population in 2000 to 43 per cent in 2015.

However, mobile cellular penetration, which is increasingly being promoted as an instrument for delivery of services, such as banking, health, education, retail, transport etc by governments, reached only 64 per cent of the population in LDCs.

“An estimated 450 million people living in rural areas still live out of reach of a mobile signal,” says the report.

The divide is particularly pronounced in respect of internet use and access, says the report, adding that governments should address the widening digital divide by cooperating with the private sector to make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication, to the vast majority of the people.

India has already embarked on an ambitious Digital India mission, aimed at bridging the divide, with an initial outlay of ₹1.13-lakh crore.

Recently, Communications & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said the Digital India plan rests on three pillars — architecture and utility, delivery of government services and digital empowerment of people.

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