Mumbai: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech said that his government intends to connect all the 6 lakh villages in the country with Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) in upcoming 1,000 days, he was speaking the truth. Because in a survey report on internet users by Carmen Ang in visualcapitalist.com, India ranks first in top 10 countries list, disconnected by number of people. The report argues that the Internet users in India which were 46.21 lakhs, Internet penetration 34.8 percent in 2016 has grown at a rapid pace of 30.5 percent annually since then.
The Prime Minister in his speech disclosed that before 2014 only 5 dozen Gram Panchayats in the country were connected by OFCs. He added that the government intends to connect all the 6 lakh Indian villages by OFCs in the upcoming 1,000 days (2.7 years).
Compared to India, with an internet penetration of 52.2 percent China tops the list of 201 countries. The other countries in the list include – USA 88.5 percent, Japan 91.1 percent, Netherlands 93.7 percent, Sweden 93.1 percent, UAE 91.9 percent, Denmark 96.3 percent, Norway 98 percent, Finland 92.5 percent, Qatar 92 percent, Bahrain 91.5 percent, Estonia 91.4 percent, Luxembourg 95.2 percent, Andorra 96.5 percent, Bermuda 97.4 percent and Liechtenstein 95.8 percent. The world’s lowest internet penetration of 1.2 percent is in Timor-Leste.
Meanwhile, in a Statista.com survey report by Sandhya Keelery, there were 302.36 million Internet users in 2015, which are expected to grow to 696.77 million in 2020 and grow further to 974.86 million by 2025. Similarly, the Mobile Internet users which were 242.92 million in 2015, is expected to grow to 448.2 million and is expected to grow to 500.9 million users by 2023.
In another survey report in Statista.com by Vaibhav Asher, the number of Smart Mobile Phone users in 2013 was just 76 million, which grew to 250.66 million in 2015, is expected to grow to 696.07 million users in 2020 and by 2025 the Smart Mobile Phone users is expected to be 973.89 million.
In order for the Prime Minister appears to have realised that in order to succeed in implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) one smart health Identity Card, Digital India initiative, the government needs to connect all the villages with OFC and bring the entire country on the digital map. Without this Online Education, Virtual Classrooms, NDHM and other Digital and Online initiatives will have limited success.
As per the visualcapitalist.com report titled “where will the next billion Internet users come from?” nearly 50 percent of 68.55 crore population is disconnected from the Internet, that is it does not have access to the Internet. What is ironical to note here is that India has the highest number of disconnected people from the Internet, despite having second largest Online Market in the world.
In the global ranking of top 10 countries, India ranks first with 50 percent of its population not having access to the Internet, followed by China 58.20 crore population that is 41 percent; Pakistan – 14.23 crore people, 65 percent; Nigeria – 11.80 crore people, 58 percent; Bangladesh – 9.74 crore people, 59 percent; Indonesia – 9.67 crore, 36 percent; Ethiopia – 9.23 crore people, 81 percent; Democratic Republic of Congo – 7.18 crore people, 81 percent; Brazil – 6.14 crore people, 29 percent and Egypt – 4.66 crore people, 46 percent.
In terms of top 10 most disconnected countries with Internet, by share of population, besides North Korea topping the list, the rest of the nine countries are from African continent. Nearly 100 percent of the entire population of North Korea that is 2.57 crore population is not connected to the World Wide Web. North Korea has a domestic Internet called Kwangmyong that is available only to a restricted population.
The other nine African countries included in this category are – South Sudan – 1.02 crore people, 92 percent; Eritrea – 32.28 lakh people, 92 percent; Burundi – 1.05 crore people, 90 percent; Somalia – 1.40 crore people, 90 percent; Niger – 2.09 crore people, 88 percent, Papua New Guinea – 77.61 lakh people, 88 percent; Liberia – 43.72 lakh people, 88 percent, Guinea-Bissau – 16.94 lakh people, 87 percent and Central African Republic – 41.32 lakh people, 86 percent.
As per the visualcapitalist.com report the fastest growing regions in terms of spread of Internet connectivity, in terms of change in internet use for 2019-2020, include – Central Africa +40 percent, Southern Asia +20 percent, North Africa +14 percent, Western Asia +11 percent and Caribbean +9 percent.
Interestingly, internet users in Democratic Republic of Congo grew by 9 million that is by +122 percent in 2019-2020. Whereas, in India, internet users grew by 128 million, that is by +23 percent in 2019-2020.
