Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reinvigorated a campaign to provide fast internet connections to 250,000 villages throughout the country at the launch of Indias Digital Week.

The Indian governments tech push plans to provide universal phone connectivity across the country, bridging Indias digital divide and bringing large investments in tech manufacturing to the country.

The $18bn (£12.8bn) campaign has made slow progress so far, aside from a few headline-grabbing initiatives such as providing free wi-fi at the Taj Mahal. The hope is that a new series of citizen awareness programs will help build support for the plans and generate a groundswell of demand, speeding the campaign.

The campaign aims to bring internet to 250,000 additional villages by 2019, as well as ending net imports of technology and electronics by 2020, at the same time as creating over 100m jobs.

Prime Minister Modi has been called Indias first cyber premier, and has notably used social media to stay in touch with both technology and his electorate. He has over 13m followers on Twitter, and has been vocal about the need to transform Indias economy in the 21st century.

“Now we are at a place where we can take off,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. “The idea is to bridge the gap between haves and have-nots of services and deliverables.”