IT Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan Announces High-Speed Internet At ₹200/Month To Bridge Digital Divide In Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu’s IT Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has announced that high-speed internet, with speeds up to 100 Mbps, would soon be available to households at Rs 200 per month.

Furthermore, the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) will distribute free laptops (or tablets) to 10 lakh college students.

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Tamil Nadu's scheme to bridge digital divide

Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu announced the scheme during the budget. 

Rajan shared that the state will distribute laptops or tablets to 20 lakh students over the next two years and allocate Rs 2,000 crore for 2025-26.

This initiative by the Tamil Nadu state government aims to bridge the digital divide between cities and villages, providing equal access to knowledge and digital services for rural students.

The Minister disclosed plans to gradually integrate e-Services with WhatsApp to provide easy access to over 260 government services via the messaging app.

Initially, 50 services will be available, including utility bill payments, etc.

A new e-KYC platform will be launched to streamline beneficiary identification processes for Aadhaar-linked welfare schemes.

The Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation project has now achieved 93 per cent completion. With 11,639 gram panchayats already connected, the project aims to connect 12,525 villages using 57,500 km of optical fibre, offering 1 Gbps bandwidth.

The IT Minister said in the Assembly on Friday that this ambitious optical fibre project will be completed by the end of this year. 

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