Government has announced to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to every village by 2018.
Department of Telecom is working to achieve this target under the Universal Services Obligation fund (USOF).
In 2017-18 Union Budget speech, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that Government will allocate INR. 10,000 crore to expand the Bharat Net project in 2017-18 for high-speed broadband.
Bharat Net aims to cover a total of 2.5 lakh village panchayats and is funded under the USOF.
It was rebranded from the earlier National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) project in April 2015.
USOF was set up in 2012 to execute various digital infrastructure projects for providing telecom services in rural areas at subsidised rates.
The finance for this fund comes through a Universal Access Levy charged from the telecom operators as a percentage of various licenses fees paid by them.
USOF Funding: Know More- The New Telecom Policy - 1999 (NTP'99) provided that the resources for meeting the Universal Service Obligation (USO) would be funded through a 'Universal Access Levy (UAL).
- This would be a percentage of the revenue obtained by the operators under various licenses.
- The Universal Service Support Policy came into operation from 01.04.2002.
- The Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act, 2003 giving statutory status to the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was assented by both Houses of Parliament in December 2003.
- The Rules for administration of the Fund called as Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2004 were notified on 26.03.2004.
- According to the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 (as amended in 2003, 2006 and 2008), the Fund is to be utilized exclusively for meeting the Universal Service Obligation.
