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11 Jul 2026ECONOMY3 questions

Fibre Reached the Village. Samriddh Gram Is the Attempt to Make It Matter

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Article summary

The Department of Telecommunications' flagship rural initiative — Samriddh Gram: Integrated Phygital Service Delivery Model Enabled by BharatNet — was declared Global Winner at the WSIS Prizes 2026 under Action Line C6 (Enabling Environment), awarded at the WSIS Forum in Geneva in July 2026. The programme rests on Samriddhi Kendras, village-level one-stop centres that combine digital access with assisted physical service delivery across education and skilling, agriculture, healthcare, e-governance, e-commerce and financial inclusion. Its foundation is BharatNet, one of the world's largest rural broadband projects, which has made more than 2.17 lakh Gram Panchayats service-ready. The award followed a multi-stage process — international screening, a global online vote in which more than 2.2 million votes were cast, selection among the top five Champion Projects in the category, and final adjudication by the WSIS Expert Committee. The significance for UPSC is not the prize but the diagnosis behind the design: India's rural connectivity problem has shifted from laying fibre to generating demand, and Samriddh Gram is an explicit attempt to close the gap between infrastructure availability and actual service consumption.

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recallTests whether you read the article and retained key facts.
1Q
applicationTests whether you can apply the concept to a new scenario.
1Q
analysisTests whether you can reason across multiple related facts.
1Q

Sample questions — answers revealed after test

ECONOMYRecallEasy

Q1. With reference to BharatNet and its funding, which one of the following statements is correct?

AIt was launched as BharatNet in 2011 and renamed the National Optical Fibre Network in 2015.
BIt is financed from the Universal Service Obligation Fund, which the Telecommunications Act, 2023 left unchanged.
CIt was launched as the National Optical Fibre Network in 2011, renamed BharatNet in 2015, and recast as the Amended BharatNet Programme in 2023; it draws on the Digital Bharat Nidhi, which replaced the Universal Service Obligation Fund under the Telecommunications Act, 2023.
DIt has connected fewer than 50,000 Gram Panchayats and is confined to six States.
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ECONOMYApplicationMedium

Q2. Samriddh Gram delivers services through Samriddhi Kendras described as 'phygital'. Which one of the following best explains why such physical hubs are needed in villages that already have fibre connectivity?

AConnectivity establishes the capability to deliver services but not the ability to use them, so a staffed physical point is what converts available bandwidth into education, health, agricultural and financial services actually accessed.
BFibre connectivity under BharatNet does not extend to data services, being limited to voice telephony.
CThe Kendras exist to lay the last mile of optical fibre from the Gram Panchayat to individual households.
DPhysical hubs are required because the IT Rules prohibit the delivery of government services over the internet without an intermediary.
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ECONOMYAnalysisHard

Q3. Consider the following statements regarding the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS): 1. It was held in two phases, at Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005, and its outcomes are organised into Action Lines C1 to C11. 2. The annual WSIS Forum is co-organised by the International Telecommunication Union with UNESCO, UNDP and UNCTAD, and Action Line C6 covers the enabling policy and regulatory environment. 3. Samriddh Gram was declared Global Winner under Action Line C6 following selection by the WSIS Expert Committee alone, no public voting being involved. Which of the statements given above are correct?

A1 only
B1 and 2 only
C2 and 3 only
D1, 2 and 3
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