Internet penetration in the country has doubled in the last six months, from a total subscriber base of 1,022,754 in March to 2,045,509 by September this year. The present rate of growth is expected to be maintained for the next five years, according to minister of information technology Pramod Mahajan.

According to the figures released by ministry of information technology, Maharashtra has the maximum subscribers base of 619,524, which is 30 per cent of the total scribers base in the country, followed by Delhi with 319,616 subscribers which accounts for about 16 percent of the total base. Tamil Nadu is in the third position with 291,032 subscribers which is about 14 per cent of the national subscriber base.

However, figures show that while the subscribers have been growing in the comparatively forward states, the north-east states have been lagging behind. The top three states in the list — Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, account for more than 60 per cent of the total subscriber base. Compared to this the entire north eastern belt including Manipur, Sikkim, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh together account for only 0.1 per cent of the total subscribers with only 2,495 subscribers.

Mahajan while responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha on the steps taken by the government to improve the Internet penetration, said that the government has taken several steps to improve Internet access in India, which include Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (BSNL) plan to set up a national Internet backbone (NIB) for carriage of Internet traffic.

Mahajan said that the NIB aims at providing easy interconnect point to the Internet service providers (ISPs) besides establishing points of presence for department of telecom service as an ISP.

It is also proposed to set up at least one Internet node in every secondary switching area. BSNL is also offering 20 per cent concession on the annual leased line rentals for leased lines taken for Internet access