A new Facebook study claims that India’s GDP could grow by $1 trillion if every single citizen went online. This high claim is pretty remarkable considering the fact that the country had crossed the $2 trillion mark for the first time back in 2014.
The internet became accessible to over 29% of Indians or 354 million users back in September 2015. This figure could rise to 39% or 462 million consumers by June 2016. The Facebook-commissioned study claims that 4 out of 5 Indians could afford data access if prices fell by 66%, a steep drop considering telecom operators already offer these services at an 11% loss.
The report by PricewaterhouseCoopers explains this by stating that a data plan which costs Rs 100 right now should be sold at Rs 34 in order to make surfing online a viable option for 80% of India’s population. However, this won’t be possible without the involvement of the government.
There has been talk earlier of the administration providing free data packs to first-time internet users similar to how its LPG subsidy system works. The idea is yet to receive traction though, so there’s no way of knowing whether it’ll come to pass. It’s also been trying to lift its Rs 20000 crore plan for a connected India for a while now.
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The main idea behind the initiative is to make data accessible across 250000 panchayats through broadband connections by 2018. Unfortunately, the enterprise is 3 years behind schedule. Facebook had notably tried to push its own Free Basics platform in India as an answer to its connectivity problems, but was later rejected on the grounds of being against the spirit of net neutrality.