Chandigarh, Aug. 7 -- Nearly six years after Punjab became the first state in the country to make all its Phase-II BharatNet Gram Panchayats service-ready in 2020, the pace of the Centre's revamped rural broadband programme has slowed considerably.

Under the Amended BharatNet Programme (ABP), approved in August 2023, only 3,069 of the state's 13,337 gram panchayats-around 23%-have been upgraded so far, even as 5G services have been rolled out across the state with 18,727 base transceiver stations (BTSs) operational.

The Centre attributed delays in BharatNet implementation to Right of Way (RoW) issues involving multiple agencies and frequent damage to optical fibre cables during development works. The details were shared by the Union min...