Bharat AirFibre for Rs. 349 per month – An affordable scheme to enable a connected and digital Bihar

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is quite determined about realizing his Atmanirbhar Bharat mission by launching schemes and challenges that empower our country’s youth with digital efficiencies.

But this mission is not going to be realized without equipping all the states, especially Bihar and the North-Eastern Indian states, with the appropriate digital and communications infrastructure.

Understanding the need to strengthen the infrastructure, the government has brought out two initiatives exclusively for Bihar.

The state just got its next-generation Network Telephone Exchange and will soon house a digital training and skilling center of the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

Bihar boasts of Bharat Air Fibre

BSNL takes a leap forward to fulfill the Government of India’s vision of ‘Broadband to All’. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, inaugurated a Next Generation Network Telephone Exchange at New Bihar Vidhan Mandal compound and Bharat Air Fibre service at Danapur Telephone Exchange in Bihar through Video conferencing from New Delhi on the 29th of August.

Sushil Kumar Modi, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Awadhesh Narain Singh, Chairman Bihar Legislative Council along with other dignitaries had graced this occasion.

This Next Generation Network Telephone exchange is a facility augmentation in Bihar Vidhan Mandal which will serve to the additional demand for reliable wireline and broadband services since it is connected to an optical fiber.

This exchange has a capacity of 512 telephone wireline and 128 broadband connections which can further be increased. New and Old Vidhan Mandal and 3 New Secretariat Block A, B, and C will be served through this new facility.

The government authorities say that while newly commissioned Bharat AirFibre will help to provide faster and reliable internet services in the rural area, Bharat AirFibre has speed at par with high-speed fiber FTTH and will serve up to 6 Km area covering R.K.Puram, Anandpur, Danapur Market, and Danapur Cantonment from Danapur Telephone Exchange.

This being completely wireless technology is easy to deploy, more reliable, needs less maintenance and will provide connectivity in non-feasible areas and villages which can’t be connected through FTTH, says the press statement released by the Ministry of Communications.

It is believed that the Bharat AirFibre works on the unlicensed spectrum and has very little interference which enables better quality of relay for the subscribers.

Bharat AirFibre will start its subscription at a low price point of Rs. 349 per month, this makes the internet accessible and affordable to users in villages and difficult terrains.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision is to convert challenges into opportunity for Aatmanirbhar Bharat and on the same lines my mission is also to take opportunities to rural corners of India. Especially in the times of Covid19 pandemic, there is immense scope for digital education, digital skilling and telemedicine, etc and broadband connectivity in rural India will play a crucial role. Bharat AirFibre will help us to scale-up faster and meet the target of covering 6 Lakhs villages in 1000 Days,” said Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

During the event, Telecom Minister also announced 50 more AirFibre sector antennas to be deployed in Bihar within the next 6 months.

In his address at the event, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Shri Sushil Modi said “Bihar Government has recently notified Right of Way (RoW) rules to facilitate better deployment of mobile tower antennas and laying of fiber optic cable in the state. Also, I am happy to mention recently I got the new BSNL FTTH broadband connection and I impressed with its high-speed connectivity.”

Bihar to house National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology

The Union Minister, via video conferencing, also laid the foundation stone of the digital training and skilling center of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

This center will be developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at a cost of Rs. 9.17 Crore.

The government of Bihar has allocated one acre of land for this institution. This center will be equipped with a state of the art training facility with a digital laboratory. Different courses such as O level, CCC, BCC, Programming, and multimedia training will be offered from this center, says the government press statement.

While laying this foundation stone, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also launched “Chunauti”- Next Generation Startup Challenge Contest - to further boost startups and software products with special focus on Tier-II towns of India.

The government has earmarked a budget of Rs. 95.03 Crore over a period of three years for this program.

This program aims to identify around 300 startups working in identified areas and provide them seed fund of upto Rs. 25 Lakh and other facilities.