UP govt to bring 150 temples in Varanasi online

The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has kicked off the Internet connection plan in the state with temples. The government is building a website where it plans to provide all the information on 150 temples in Varanasi.

The details include Google map locations, temples' history and contact numbers of respective priests, among others.

Called as the holy city of India with deep religious importance, the move will give a new lease of life to hundreds of temples and help to keep the rich heritage intact.

These temples include Lord Bhairav, Gauri, Durga, Asht Vinayak, Ashta Pradhan Vinayak Jyotirlingas and several others.

The step will work to boost the tourism in the city as it will help domestic and international tourists to get information about the ancient temples on the go.

The yet-to-be-launched website will have a user-generated content, including YouTube videos, 360-degree video, and 3D animation integration features, which can be accessed through the web-app.

The information should also be made available on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others.

Varanasi is the parliamentary constituency of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he won the 2014 Lok Sabha election by a massive margin.

Also Read: Govt meets top digital companies to explore trillion-dollar digital dream

UP on digital highway

To push the digital growth in the state, recently-concluded 'Uttar Pradesh Investors’ Summit', Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced to invest Rs 10,000 crore in the state over the next three years.

The UP govt is aiming to bring Internet through Jio to every village in the state by the end of this year.

The union government has planned to launch 1000 digital villages along with virtual classrooms and health rooms. It had also cleared the second phase of BharatNet. Through the BharatNet initiative, the government claimed to bridge the digital divide in rural and remote areas by providing affordable broadband at a minimum speed of 100 Mbps.

At present, India has 38,000 WiFi hotspots. Under BharatNet phase 2, around 6-7 lakh WiFi hotspots will be added to 2-5 hotspots in each panchayat.

The development was first reported by ET.