India News | RailTel, CSC Come Together to Increase Broadband Penetration in Rural, Semi-urban Areas

New Delhi, Dec 2 (PTI) RailTel and CSC e-Governance Services India Limited signed an MOU to leverage each other's strength for increasing broadband penetration in rural and semi-urban areas for bridging the digital divide, the rail PSU said on Thursday.

While RailTel is one of the largest neutral telecom service and ICT solutions providers having pan India presence, e-Governance Services India Limited is enabling rural population with a host of e-governance services for digital inclusion.

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The CSC e-Governance Services India Limited is a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The key stakeholder of the CSC scheme is the village level entrepreneur (VLE). The VLEs actively provide various online public utility, financial services and quality healthcare, apart from boosting entrepreneurship/employment in villages and smaller towns across the country.

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RailTel has already set up about 200 ‘RailWire Saathi' kiosks at rural/semi urban railway stations which will now be operated by the VLEs of CSC. This will e-enable citizens by providing various digital services and also create awareness about RailWire services in rural areas.

RailTel also has 6,070 PoPs (point of presence) on its network, out of which 5,000 are in rural areas. Utilising these rural PoPs RailTel, in partnership with CSC, will deliver broadband services to rural areas.

"We are happy to join hands with CSC to utilise our telecom infrastructure across the country to extend broadband services to masses and increase value proposition to CSC and its VLE partners. Together, we can help the Centre's initiative for digital inclusion which will go a long way in bridging the digital divide," Puneet Chawla, CMD, RailTel said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)