NEW DELHI -- The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to herald a broadband revolution through its ambitious Digital India initiative aimed at providing government services online to citizens nationwide by 2019. It may be setting its sights too high.
In addition to introducing e-governance and e-services on a massive scale, the program seeks to bring about broadband connectivity in 250,000 villages, universal phone connectivity, 400,000 public Internet access points, Wi-Fi in 250,000 schools and universities, and public Wi-Fi hot spots for citizens. The program is expected to directly create 17 million jobs and indirectly create 85 million jobs.
