Government Expands Digital Infrastructure and Citizen-Centric Services to Bridge the Digital Divide

The Ministry of Electronics & IT reports that under the Digital India programme, 2.21 lakh Gram Panchayats have been made service‑ready under BharatNet as of June 2026 and 5.01 lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) are functional nationwide, with 18,240 CSCs in Tamil Nadu. Telephone connections rose from 93.3 crore (Mar 2014) to over 133 crore (Mar 2026) and internet subscribers from 25.15 crore to 109.27 crore in the same period. Aadhaar enrolments exceed 1.44 billion (8.18 crore in Tamil Nadu) and DBT has transferred over Rs 52 lakh crore. UPI now serves 55.49 crore users and 6.5 crore merchants, while DigiLocker has 71.66 crore users. The PM‑Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan has trained 6.39 crore people nationwide (14 lakh in Tamil Nadu).