Kerala becomes first state to have own internet service

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said Kerala has now become the first and only state in the country to have its own internet service.

The announcement came in the wake of the Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd, an ambitious IT infrastructure project of the government to make the internet accessible to everyone in the state, receiving the Internet Service Provider (ISP) license from the Department of Telecommunications.

With this, the project envisaged to bridge the digital divide in the society, can commence its operations, the CM said.

"Kerala becomes the only State in the country with its own internet service. The Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd has received the ISP license from @DoT_India. Now, our prestigious #KFON project can kickstart its operations of providing the internet as a basic right to our people," Vijayan tweeted.

The KFON scheme is envisaged to provide free internet to BPL families and 30,000 government offices. The previous Left government had in 2019 declared internet connection as a basic right and launched the Rs 1,548-crore KFON project.