Puducherry: Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot on Saturday said the UPA Government had taken a decision to ensure that every panchayat in the country was equipped with high speed broadband internet access by 2012.
"We will provide optical fibre cable connection to all panchayats across the country as connectivity is the important component to ensure quality in process of development," he said at a function here.
Rolling out a Rs 32 crore State Data Centre and launching a Research and Development Centre sponsored by the Department of Information and Technology of Puducherry Government, he said India had established a record of being superpower in IT sector and this was feasible because of the youth.
"We have also managed to make this mark of being a super power even though only eight percent of the people in the country use internet," he said.
There would be a paradigm shift soon if a still larger chunk of population had access to the internet. The government wanted to grant financial and electronic empowerment and as part of this mission each of the panchayats would be provided with the high speed broadband access, he said.
"Creation of infrastructure in the 21st century is a big challenge and this will be met successfully and it would be an unmatched infrastructure," he said adding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured to provide required funds.
He said Puducherry would be earmarked more than the funds sought by the territorial government to develop IT sector.
Later, inaugurating modernised post offices of Villianoor and Tirukanoor here, Pilot said the government had committed to modernising and networking all the 1.55 lakh post offices across the country by 2012 at a cost of Rs 1,800 crore under 'Project Arrow' programme of the Department of Posts.
He said times had changed from inland letters and postcards. People demanded several IT based facilities and electronic mails.
The UPA government was keen to ensure better services and realise its goal of 'inclusive growth and equitable distribution'.
Lt Governor Dr Iqbal Singh declared open the Information Communication Technology Academy while Union Minister of State for Parliament Affairs V.Narayanasamy announced a proposal of the Centre to declare Puducherry an 'e-governance' district.
Chief Minister V. Vaithilingam and IT Minister of Puducherry Shahjahan were among those who spoke.