Kerala Becomes 1st State To Provide Free Internet For The Poor; 20 Lakh Families Will Be Benefitted

After declaring the Internet as the fundamental right of every citizen, Kerela is now all set to roll out free high-speed broadband Internet for all the poor in the state.

Rs 1500 crore K-FON project will kickstart from December.

Kerela Will Provide Free Broadband For The Poor

Kerala Govt has declared that their ambitious broadband project: Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) project will roll out from December.

This means that from December onwards, all the citizens below poverty live in Kerala will get free high-speed Internet. And those who cannot afford, will be provided high speed Internet at a subsidized rate.

Recently Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held a meeting with all the heads of the companies of the consortium which will execute K-FON project. The roll out dates of December has been provided after this meeting.

Rs 1500 crore has already been allocated for K-FON project, which will be spread the usage of Internet all across the state, and trigger a new digital economy.

Kerala will be the first state to provide free high speed broadband to the poor people.

The consortium of the companies which are executing this massive projects include both private and public companies. While there is Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Railtel; private companies like SRIT and LS Cables are also part of the consortium.

 Kerala State IT Infrastructure Limited and Kerala State Electricity Board are the nodal authorities for K-FON project from the Govt side.

Internet Is A Fundamental Right Of All Citizens

Last year, Kerala had become the 1st state to declare that Internet is a fundamental right of all citizens, and just like education and health, Internet too should be provided by the concerned governments.

Kerala CM said, “Kerala is the first state to declare the internet as a fundamental right of the citizen. As part of this, the K-FON project was launched to provide quality internet free of cost to the poor and at affordable rates to others. No other state in India has implemented such a scheme. Despite the delay due to the lockdown, M V Gautam, CMD of consortium leader BEL, has promised to complete the project by December this year,”

Using Kerala State Electricity Board posts and infrastructure, the companies involved in this project are right now laying optical cable fiber across the state, and the broadband will be live by December.

More details are awaited on the pricing and plans of K-FON.

Stay tuned!