The government is planning a new programme under which over 20,000 colleges and 600 universities will be WiFi-enabled, parliament was informed Wednesday.

 

 The programme, "Campus Connect", will benefit various central and state funded universities along with private universities. The programme is being planned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) and aims to benefit over 1.5 crore students.

 

 "Totally, 4.2 lakh classrooms will be made WiFi enabled and this will help around 1.5 crore students. Students will be given access only to those websites which are academically relevant," HRD minister, Smriti Irani, said in a reply to the Lok Sabha. She added that all buildings of 600 universities across India which have 1 Gbps bandwidth will be WiFi enabled.  Additionally, 140 centrally funded institutions under the ministry will be made WiFi enabled.

 

 "The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT)  also aims to provide 20 broadband connections of 512 Kbps speed over 25,000 colleges, 2,000 polytechnics and optical fiber connectivity of one Gbps to 419 universities/university level institutions in the country," she added.