India's government plans to invest $2 billion to improve Internet access in schools across the country.

While $1 billion will be spent on providing Net connectivity, another $833 million has been proposed for upgrading Education and Research Network (Ernet). The blueprint drawn up by the Ministry of Information Technology shows that multilateral funding agencies like the World Bank would be recruited as a partner. The $1 billion project called "Schoolnet" proposes to provide 128 kilobits per second connections in 60,000 schools in the first phase. In its second phase, the government proposes to add another 40,000 schools, taking the total number to 100,000. On Ernet - the network that interconnects the universities and research and development institutions in the country - the government is also looking at the possibility of private-sector participation. The Ernet upgrade would involve increasing the available bandwidth and upgrading the computer infrastructure as also providing value-added services like educational content, setting up an educational portal, networking for engineering institutions and implementation of UGC net. "Considering the magnitude of the projects, the IT ministry is of the opinion that it will be difficult to implement the project on its own," an official said. The IT ministry, along with the Ministry of Communications and Educational Institutes had already signed an agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to set up Sankhya Vahini, which was to provide high-speed data link between educational and research institutes. That project has, however, been put on the backburner. The satellite network of Ernet is operating on one-fourth transponder space in the C-band of Insat-II DT since December 1998. At present 750 institutions are connected through Ernet.