SHILLONG, March 14: Meghalaya has earned the dubious distinction of being the worst performer in providing internet connectivity in government schools.
With a meagre 1.27% coverage, Meghalaya tops the list of states and union territories in India with internet connection at less than 10% in government schools, Union Minister of State for Education, Annpurna Devi told the Lok Sabha on Monday.
She quoted the Unified District Information System for Education 2019-20 data in her response.
According to the minister, there are 20 states/UTs with less than 10% government schools with internet coverage — Meghalaya (1.27%), Tripura (1.61%), Ladakh (1.86%), Bihar (2.05%), Mizoram (2.35%), Manipur (2.36%), Odisha (2.72%), Uttar Pradesh (2.94%), Nagaland (3.03%), Chhattisgarh (3.35%), Arunachal Pradesh (3.44%), Madhya Pradesh (3.81%), Assam (4.32%), Jammu and Kashmir (5.18%), Uttarakhand (6.40%), Karnataka (7.75%), Telangana (8.03%), Goa (8.46%), Andhra Pradesh (9.10%) and West Bengal (9.65%).
The list is topped by Chandigarh, which had 100% of its government schools connected with internet facilities, followed by Lakshadweep (93.33%), Delhi (88.18%), and Kerala (87.16%).
“To improve the internet connectivity in rural areas, the CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd (CSC-SPV) of MEITY has been assigned the task of providing Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) connectivity to the government institutions, including schools,” Devi said. (With PTI input)
