Agartala: Thirty-eight-year-old Abinash Das is excited. From his doorstep he will soon be able to get any government certificate and permit within an hour and will also be able to file a police complaint - thanks to the government's 20, 000 crore "digital village" project that will eventually cover all the 250,000 gram panchayats.

"I would get any official certificate or permit from my panchayat office itself instead of visiting the block office or the SDM's (sub-divisional magistrate's) office or any other offices," Das, a resident of the Panisagar block in northern Tripura, told IANS, adding that all the residents of the block would get the facilities through the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN).

The Indian government's Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) has put in place the infrastructure for conducting a pilot project in 59 gram panchayats in three blocks across India to explore how citizens and institutions can be offered services through the NOFN.

"The main objective of NOFN is to ensure better governance and to provide governmental services to the people in the villages using the network (NOFN), supported by broadband connectivity with adequate bandwidth," he added.

Under the pilot, all government offices, including health institutions and police stations in the Panisagar block will be connected with the NOFN, also making videoconferencing possible.

"The NOFN would also facilitate execution of various other e-governance initiatives like e-health, e-banking and e-education, thereby facilitating comprehensive development," Acharya said.

For instance, any of the 53,845 residents of the 14 gram panchayats in Panisagar, sitting in his panchayat office, can consult a specialist doctor in Agartala or New Delhi or Mumbai or any other important city in India. "Farmers will be able to interact with agricultural or horticultural experts or any professional with this proposed technique," Acharya pointed out.

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