RailTel Corporation of India, a Central Government Public Sector Undertaking under the Ministry of Railways, has achieved a milestone of 1 lakh Fiber To The Home (FTTH) broadband internet users in Tamil Nadu.
This service by RailTel is under the brandname "Railwire’ with over 50 per cent of the users from rural areas, says a release.
At an interaction programme with partners organised in Madurai and Kanchipuram on Sunday to mark this achievement, RailTel’s Chairman and Managing Director Puneet Chawla said that RailTel is committed to leverage its infrastructure to spur wired broadband and entrepreneurship in rural India.
Bridging the gap
Rural broadband deployment is one way of bridging the digital divide between rural and urban populations. The broadband connectivity in villages will be the key enabler for the socio-economic development in rural areas.
RailTel is playing a major role in digital transformation. Currently, it has over 4.6 lakh Railwire subscribers in the country out of which around 50 per cent are in rural areas across the country.
Internet in villages is also helping in setting up Common Service Centres through Village Level Entrepreneurs, which will make available ervices such as looking oravelling tickets (train, air, bus), Aadhar card, voter card, mobile recharge, electricity bill payment, PAN Pard, filing income tax, banking and insurance.
RailTel uses model of collaborating with local entrepreneurs and creating sustainable livelihoods. In fact, Railtel played a pioneering role in developing this kind of collaborative model, the release said.