The Ministry of Human Resource Development is planning a new programme
called Campus Connect. Under these programme 21,000 colleges, 20
classrooms will be made Wi-Fi enabled. Totally, 4.2 lakh classrooms will be
made Wi-Fi enabled and this will help around 1.5 crore students. Students will
be given access only to those websites which are academically relevant.
All the buildings of 600 universities that have
1 Gbps bandwidth will be made by Wi-Fi enabled. This includes Government of
India funded institutions, state government universities and also private
universities. This will help around 20 lakh students. The whole campus of all
the 140 centrally funded Institutions of Ministry of HRD will be made Wi-Fi
enabled.
The National Mission on Education through
Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) aims to leverage the
potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching and
learning process. The Mission also aims to provide 20 Broadband connections of
512 Kbps speed to over 25,000 colleges and 2000 polytechnics and optical fiber
connectivity one Gbps to 419 universities/ university level institutions in the
country which includes internet facility.
The NMEICT scheme has three major
components viz. (i) content generation; (ii) providing connectivity to
universities and colleges; and (iii) Research and development of low cost
access device.
Under
the NMEICT scheme, the activity of providing connectivity to 419 Universities/
University level Institutions and all colleges including polytechnics is in
progress. So far connectivity to 403 Universities/ University level
institutions and 21,026 colleges in the country has been provided. Under this
scheme, no central assistance has been provided by the Central Government
directly to States to implement the scheme/ project. However, as provided in
the Mission document, funds have been released to universities/university level
institutions of the country for various projects.
For
connectivity to universities and colleges, central share of 75% of the cost is
directly released to the BSNL/ MTNL (implementing agency) with the stipulation
that the balance 25% of the cost (10% in case of institution of North East
Region) would be deposited by the concerned institution directly to BSNL/ MTNL.
The details of the fund allocated and
utilized under NMEICT scheme during last three years and the current year is as
follows:
(Rs. in crores)
Year
|
Fund Allocated
|
Actual Expenditure
|
2011-12
|
400.00
|
380.04
|
2012-13
|
222.00
|
191.85
|
2013-14
|
125.00
|
120.55
|
2014-15
|
180.00
|
37.57
(till 31.07.2014)
|
Total
|
927.00
|
730.01
|
This information was given by the Union Human
Resource Development Minister, Smt. Smriti Irani to a Lok Sabha question.
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MC/DS/SM/- through NMEICT